


Exit Music

by nookienostradamus



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Alcohol Abuse, Anal Sex, Android Self Harm, Autopsy, Bottom Connor, Case Fic, Corruption, Death, Depression, Drug Use, Drugs, Emotional Manipulation, Experimentation on Non-Humans, Fingering, Fugitives, Grief, Gun Violence, Like the slowest possible burn, Loss, Love, M/M, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Murder, Oral Sex, Overdose, Past Hank/Human!Daniel, Police Brutality, Revenge, Self Harm, Sex Work, Slow Burn, Suicide, Unwilling partners to friends to lovers, alternate setting, android body horror, handjobs, mentions of sexual abuse, suicidal impulses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-06-24 03:50:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 146,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15621909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nookienostradamus/pseuds/nookienostradamus
Summary: Hank Anderson ended his 32-year career as a homicide detective in Baltimore by killing the man who shot his partner. The grand jury sentences him to six months in the new Monitor program: an advanced prototype android named Connor is assigned to follow Hank's every move. He's not happy about it, but it beats rotting in jail - even if the widower of the man he killed is still calling for justice.Hank is sure at first that Connor is just going to have to watch him drink himself to death. Then a break-in at his house reveals a side of the city he has never seen, and plunges both he and Connor into an underworld of narcotics, exploitation, and murder. But the rabbit hole goes much deeper still: a hidden resistance movement, mistaken identities, altered bodies and fabricated memories. The more he uncovers, the more certain Hank is that he was set up to take a fall...and may not have been the first.Forced together by circumstance and pulled by the momentum of the case, Hank and Connor develop a mutual fascination, and an inexplicable need to protect each other in a world where emotions can be drugs and the line between human and non-human is increasingly blurred.





	1. Baltimore - November 2048

**Author's Note:**

> Just a heads-up: if you're looking for fluff, you might want to turn around. Fans of detective lit might call it "hard-boiled," though sprinkled liberally with dark humor. Long and plot-heavy, with a ridiculously slow burn, though it does eventually earn its Explicit rating. Please heed the tags; I will add more as necessary. 
> 
> I pulled the characters out of Detroit and put them in Baltimore, largely because I know fuck-all about Detroit but know lots about Baltimore. And it fulfills the seedy-but-also-a-source-of-wonder locale I needed. Many android characters from the game are human in this fic.
> 
> The structure of the fic has each longer chapter (except the final) followed by a shorter "interlude" chapter that gives insight into Hank's life and backstory.

Hank hadn’t been truly pissed off until Chief Fowler shot him that look. Sympathetic—no, worse. _Pitying._  With a helping of condescension. The same you’d give a guy on the street waving an empty credit meter. Or a horse with a busted leg.

Yeah, right before you shot it.

 _End of an era_ , that look said. _There goes something that used to be great._

Hank scowled, his teeth pinching the inside of his cheek. It was hard enough to draw blood; he could taste it.

He hadn’t ever been great, not really. Had a ton of cases in the bag, but not out of some preternatural gift for the work. He just held on like a fucking leech until the case gave way, digging in further if someone held a match under his ass.

This time, Hank the Leech had been salted. He tried not to wither under the stares from across the table—fought the urge to give them a smile full of bloody teeth. He swallowed hard instead.

“I know you like to get out,” Fowler was saying. “You’d go nuts under house arrest.”

 _That_ was bullshit. Just about everything on StreamTV—even the crappy reality shows like _New Hollywood_ or _Underwater Real Estate_ —was better than just about everything in Baltimore. House arrest came with a subdermal chip that would blow up the monitoring network if he stepped past his property line. But even bringing down a clutch of drones to hound him back inside was better than _this_. Hell, it might even be fun once in a while.

“If the Monitor program is successful, we’ll deploy it on a wider scale,” Stern said. She was perched on the edge of the desk, legs crossed, one high heel dangling. Every inch the TV cop, even though Hank was sure Amanda Stern hadn’t laid down leather on the street in two decades. When she leaned forward, the slick WrinkleProof of her suit creaked. “You’re a pioneer, Detective Anderson. Think of it that way.”

“I’m a guinea pig, you mean,” Hank told her.

Stern raised her eyebrows. “If you like.”

At that, Fowler cut in, already playing mediator. “This is a collaboration,” he said. “It isn’t mindless by a long shot. The Monitor needs to learn your boundaries, Hank.” Fowler didn’t even try to hide the approval-seeking glance at Stern. He’d have his work cut out for him as police commissioner. The newly elected mayor of Baltimore was a gargoyle—as in stone-cold and scary. Hank would have chafed under any leadership, but he’d joined up early with the minority on the force that despised Amanda Stern for her every decision as commish. Now, she was only hours away from taking the mayor’s seat—her reward for stepping on faces. Fowler was a stoolie; he’d rubber-stamp her policies down the chain.

Hank knew his faults, but at least he wasn’t a brown-noser. “Oh, so it’s _me_ doing the babysitting? Not this _thing_?”

“This _thing_ is the most highly advanced android prototype in existence,” Stern said. “It’s not on the market. CyberLife has lent it to the city of Baltimore on a trial basis.” A glare like a scalpel, only not as nice. “You should consider yourself lucky, _Mister_ Anderson.”

 _Low blow_. For the first time in thirty-two years, Hank was a civilian again. Badge and gun gone—handed over the first hour of the first day of his suspension. Maybe a tiny part of him had expected reinstatement. Regardless, he wouldn’t take back a single bullet from Simon Brandt’s body. He ground his teeth together until his jaw muscles tingled with effort.

“Why don’t we bring out the Monitor?” said Fowler. He was making small motions with his hands, palm-down, raising and lowering them over the surface of the desk. Like the square at the house party. “If that’s all right with you, Madame Mayor.”

Stern gave a crisp nod. A uniform took the cue and ducked out of the room.

It was cooler outside in the hallway, and a breath of that coolness swirled in to ruffle Hank’s hair. It smelled like donuts and freedom.

At least he’d still have donuts.

The uniform walked back in, followed by a slim man with improbable good looks. Dark hair expertly tamed, a lawyer’s neutral expression. That’s what it looked like, in fact: a defense attorney frozen the second before he launched into some over-the-top closing argument. Not a single line on its face except for the cleft chin. Slap a pair of horn-rims on that mug and _ta-da!_ Clark Fucking Kent.

The outfit was all wrong, though. The sheen identified it as WrinkleProof. They were going for “futuristic,” but missed and landed on sci-fi hokey. A wink at some old TV show that kept getting slick reboots.

Hank didn’t even try to stifle his chuckle.

“Mind telling us what’s so funny, Anderson?” Judge Prescott asked. It was the first time he’d spoken in a while.

Hank could see Stern’s mouth moving: tiny tics. “Nothing, just—” He ran a hand through his beard, looking right at the android. “Who put you in that getup? Starfleet?”

It only turned its head and met Hank’s stare. “These clothes were given to me by CyberLife. They are functional, not decorative. I also have no need to change them, as I don’t sweat—”

“Thank you, Connor,” Stern cut in.

“You _named_ it?” Hank asked, mildly appalled.

“CyberLife chooses names over model numbers,” said Stern. “A caprice of their founder, I guess.” The curl of her lips might have been a smile, but it only affected the bottom half of her face. Like a damn Picasso.

Hank looked away, back at the thing called Connor. He started backward when the machine leaned over and put out its hand, then felt like a chump for flinching. Its face was earnest, spot-on sincere, like it was asking to marry his daughter. At once, Hank was absurdly glad he’d never had kids.

“I’m pleased to be working with you, Detective Anderson,” Connor said. “I hope we can make this a...beneficial partnership.”

Hank slumped against the hard wooden back of the chair. It felt barely solid. Talking to this thing, watching everyone treat it like _just_ _another guy_ —it threw him for a loop. Nobody he knew was rich enough to own an android, and nobody just stopped to chat with the few that were seen on the street. It was the same as asking a parking meter about the weather.

“‘Partnership?’” His voice was too loud in the small room. “My YardBot cleans up after the dog. That’s what it’s built for. I don’t have a _partnership_ with it.” He turned toward Prescott. “Can’t I just have the chip? Honestly, this has gone far—”

Stern’s cool voice cut him off. “You’ll shut your mouth and do as you’re told.” She pointed a finger toward the android. “Just like Connor will.” The creepy half-face smile again. Her nails tapped on the desktop. “Or you can sit out your six months in Jessup. We both know folks there don’t take kindly to ex-cops who get grand juried out of a murder charge.”

She was slicker than snake oil and Hank felt the old, red rage start to filter in behind his eyes. Wouldn’t do any good to blow up, though. Big as he was—and mean—he was still fifty-three and past his hard and quick years. He wouldn’t last a night in Jessup. “Yeah,” he said, mostly to himself.

The idiot android was still holding out its hand. Still expecting.

Hank took it. The skin was warm and it had some give, which almost made Hank pull back. He saw creases at the knuckle and felt texture on the palm. Fake tendons moved soundlessly on the back of its hand, with shadowy ridges between, and something like a network of veins showed vivid blue below white.

Connor’s grip was firm but hesitant. Not reluctant, but like it was _calibrating_. Making sure it didn’t mismeasure and crush Hank’s hand to pulp.

“Beneficial,” Hank muttered.

The next part he was dreading the most, if that was possible. It wasn’t anything less than a perp walk, acquittal or no. Down the courthouse steps in his ill-fitting suit, with a machine built to look like a model BPD recruit. There would be reporters outside: men and women with pinched, painted faces.

Probably protesters, too.

Thirty-three years since Freddie Gray. The city had either come full circle or hadn’t budged an inch. Hank barely remembered 2015 but for its long-gone technology: radio, network television, cell phones. Androids were science fiction then; Will Smith was an action hero and not an 80-something with a synthetic trachea pretending (badly) that he didn’t need his power chair.

As they marched the condemned down the main hallway, a scruffy-haired guy stood up from one of the benches. Couple days of stubble, ugly suede jacket—couldn’t be anyone but Gavin Reed, Hank’s self-appointed replacement. He’d gotten shifted up to Homicide from Area Two’s Special Enforcement Vice Squad after the indictment had come down.

Reed whistled as they approached. “Loving the boy toy, Anderson,” he called. “If I could retire with some hot plastic and a pension, I’d shoot a guy in the back tomorrow.”

Hank gave Reed the finger. “Four in the chest, you inbred chucklefuck.”

Instead of reprimanding Hank, Amanda Stern stepped neatly out of formation and slapped Reed across the face. It stopped the whole procession dead.

For a split second, the cocky swagger disappeared. Reed looked like a microwaved doll with his jaw all slack. Stern could probably smell the illegal cigarettes he made sure everyone knew he smoked.

Hank busted up laughing, the sound ringing up and down the corridor.

“That’s not the image we project here in the Baltimore Police Department,” Stern said. They were schoolteacher words said with hitman intensity.

Hank felt a guttering flicker of respect for the new mayor.

Then Reed recovered. He half-raised a hand toward his face, but thought better of it and snapped to attention. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Let’s go,” said Stern, taking the lead once more.

Hank craned his neck until Reed was out of sight, but he never turned back.

Outside, a few snowflakes filtered down from low clouds. The heavy sky might have been nice in perfect silence, but the crowd had exploded into unrest and it felt stifling. Reporters shouted questions, waving their finger mics in Hank’s direction. Drone cameras buzzed and swirled, programmed to follow the anchors’ lines of sight.

Hank said nothing, of course, trying not to paw through the sea of upraised hands. No one asked questions of Connor, though, and even the drones kept their distance.

 _Professional courtesy_ , Hank thought.

Then he was inside the van with the auto-seatbelt tightening over his gut. The android didn’t watch Hank, or the fists bouncing off the tinted plexi, but looked straight ahead.

“You live up Woodberry, yeah?” asked the uniformed escort. They had left the flashing cruiser lights and cameras in the dust, the shouting no longer audible.

“Yeah,” Hank said, “but we’re not going there.”

The uniform cleared his throat.

It felt good making him uncomfortable. Hank tried a sideways glance at the android. Maybe it would contradict him, back up the order to ferry him home. But he wasn’t on house arrest. This squirrely little punk and his cheekbones would have to follow him into Jimmy’s. Maybe he could park it by the door like an umbrella. “Calhoun and Booth,” he said. “Up north of Pigtown. You know Franklin Square Park?”

“Magpie city?” the kid asked.

“Yeah, whatever,” Hank said, too tired to argue. “Place called Jimmy’s.” His stomach complained a little; he hadn’t been able to choke down breakfast that morning. Well, outside of a shot of Famous Grouse. Maybe he’d tuck into a plate of Jimmy’s nachos while Android Boy watched.

There was a moment of tense silence. Connor sat still as the goddamned Buddha.

“Okay,” the uniform said. He pinch-zoomed the onscreen map and poked at it, changing coordinates. The van made an immediate, smooth swing to the left.

Jimmy’s Bar was a dive place for a dive neighborhood, squat and brick-faced and settled like a scab on the northwest corner of Calhoun Street. It had been there since before the turn of the twenty-first century, managing to survive both gentrification and the Real Deal flight inland. The bar was a relic—just like Hank. The original Jimmy was taking the long nap, but luckily his son inherited the place, the name, and the attitude.

Hank had always hated cop bars, like McCoy’s downtown for the Irish guys and The Tap Room for everyone else. Jimmy’s was his place and a jealously guarded secret on top of it. He knew it was safe when the van pulled up on the opposite corner and the uniform said: “What a shit heap.”

“Exactly,” Hank told him. He grunted and swung out of the low seat. Out of habit, he thumped his palm on the vehicle’s roof, an unspoken thanks. As he started across the street, he only knew Connor followed from the hiss-and-click of the van’s door.

With his fate sealed, Hank almost expected the city to be turned sideways, full of idiot geometry like those Escher posters they sold to college kids at street fairs. But the corner was the same, with the same wet trash in the gutters and the same people vaping on their stoops. Jimmy’s smelled just the same, too: old beer and fryer grease and hard-earned sweat.

Mister Space Cadet Chic would stand out here in the worst way.

Hank stopped at the juke console right inside the door to swap whatever garage rock was playing for some decent tunes. Jimmy had Throat Punch and Sudden Infant Death. And Stake It, a black metal outfit from Japan that was actually pretty good. It was never clear whether they were growling in English or Japanese, but it didn’t matter.

When Throat Punch launched into “Acid Face,” a gem from a couple albums ago, Hank breathed his relief.

He eased onto the vinyl barstool and Android Boy sat in the next one over, prim as you please. It was the rough equivalent of picking the closest urinal in an otherwise empty bathroom.

Jimmy the Younger stepped into the wan light. It puddled in the dark circles under his eyes, making him look like he’d taken a beating. He _had_ , but it was a forty-year one doled out by life, a little bit at a time. Hank didn’t care for what that implied about his own looks.

“Hey, Jimmy,” he said. “Two and a shot, please.”

Jimmy grunted. A motion of his chin toward Connor.

“Android,” Hank said. “It’s with me.”

After a couple of appraising seconds, Jimmy frowned and said, “You win the lotto?”

Hank served up a wide smile that had zero mirth. “Severance package was extra generous.”

“What’s it do?” Jimmy asked.

“My function is to monitor Hank for a period of six months,” Connor piped up in that eager-beaver voice. He turned his head. “May I call you ‘Hank?’”

“Whatever.” Hank grabbed the first of the two beers, slopping froth over the edge of the glass, and put it away in one go.

“Does it drink?” Jimmy asked.

While Hank was swabbing the foam off his mustache with the sleeve of his suit coat, Connor answered. “I have no need to eat or drink. And alcohol would have no effect on me. So I’m able to speak, I was designed with a fluid microdispersal system that keeps my mouth and throat lubricated—“

“Jesus Christ,” Hank said, loudly. “You don’t have to get graphic.”

Jimmy raised an eyebrow and fixed Hank with a stare. “You should return it.” He turned around, taking with him a bar rag that probably hadn’t been washed since the Al-Ghamdi Administration.

“If only,” Hank said into the sinking head of his second beer.

The song faded into the spare opening bars of Stake It’s “I Kill Myself Every Night.”

WrinkleProof did its weird squealing thing in the brief silence. Connor had leaned over. “Forgive me if it was inappropriate to talk about my engineering. I won’t mention it again.” He paused. “Unless you specifically ask.”

Hank belched. “Yeah, well, usually when someone’s talking ‘fluid’ and ‘lubricating,’ it ain’t engineering on his mind.”

The android frowned.

Hank noted with a little relief that two parallel wrinkles had appeared in the flawless skin between its eyebrows.

Its face smoothed in a second or two, though. “Is it a habit of yours to drink alcohol in the morning, Hank? Or are you drinking because you’re upset about your dismissal from the police force?”

It was all Hank could do to keep from spitting out his mouthful of warm beer. “What? Are you going to call the judge on me?” Underneath his annoyance, a slim needle of paranoia slipped in.

“I have a direct neural uplink to the Department of Corrections’ data feed at all times,” Connor said, sounding positively cheerful about it. “There is no need to call a human being to make a report. Suspicious activity is flagged for review via algorithm. If imminent danger exists, an officer will be alerted.”

The needle dug in further. Hank downed the bottom-shelf whiskey and slammed the shot glass back onto the bar.

Connor leaned in again.

Before it was able to start gabbing, Stake It’s double kick drums and screaming guitars blasted out.

Connor actually jumped, its jaw hanging slack.

Hank forced an overly loud laugh.

The android squinted like someone had aimed a flashlight at its face. “What _is_ this?”

“The only music that matters,” Hank said, raising a finger and making a tight corkscrew motion in the air, signaling for a refill.

“It’s...interesting.”

Jimmy, silent and dour, brought the bottle over and poured a generous double shot, which Hank took immediately. His look toward Connor was a challenge.

Connor’s eyes narrowed. “I would not judge this a reportable event. Although I should let you know that you have now consumed more than the recommended daily limit on alcohol for an adult male.” It raised its finger, prepping for a full-on scold. “And drinking before six p.m. is a statistically supported indicator of alcoholism, either now or in the near future.”

“Well,” Hank said, raising the pint glass in Connor’s direction, “thank you for your _judgment_. I’ll keep the rest in mind.” His empty stomach was less than pleased, but damned if he wasn’t going to put away everything he ordered.

Frowning again, Connor added, “My programming also requires me to prevent you from harming yourself.”

Hank winced, unable to hide it. The aftermath of Simon Brandt’s death hadn’t been the first time he’d considered eating his gun, but the idea had cropped up more often in the last few weeks than it had for a long time. “Great,” he managed. “I have to listen to you talk for six months and I can’t even put myself out of my misery.”

The android’s posture and expression told Hank it hadn’t gone over as a joke.

“I don’t have to talk,” Connor said. “Unless it serves a function.” It paused, looking damnably like it was searching for words. “I am programmed by CyberLife to engage in typical human behavior, which often involves conversation. We could discuss something different.” He turned toward the screen over the dirty shelves and their dirty bottles, where digital ads chased each other around the border of the field at Amazon Stadium. “Like sports. I’ve catalogued player statistics for the Ravens starting with the 1996 inaugural season.”

Hank groaned. “Oh, please, God no.”

With a half-shrug, Connor turned again to face the screen and the wall of cheap hooch.

The song cut off and led into an S.I.D. classic: “Negative Birth Rate.”

Cracking his knuckles, Hank sighed. “They didn’t really think this through,” he said. “My place isn’t huge. I hope you’re okay sleeping on the couch.”

There was something puppyish in the way Connor turned to face him again. “I have no need to sleep. I only need to find a place out of the way. I’ll likely use the hours you sleep to process files and review my objectives.”

“You sound like every kid I hated in school.”

It was beyond explanation, but the thing actually smiled at that.

When Hank looked up at the screen again, he swore under his breath. The ball game had been replaced by special coverage of the press conference outside City Hall. Markus Brandt stood behind the podium, above a sea of waving protest signs. In a slate-colored coat and dark shirt, his hands bare in the cold, he looked every bit the dignified widower.

Scowling, Hank slapped the bar to get Jimmy’s attention, then held his shot glass aloft for another pour. If Connor was smart, it'd keep its yap shut.

Jimmy filled the glass until the dark liquid wobbled and spilled, smelling pleasingly medicinal. The bartender’s take on sympathy suited Hank just fine.

At least the captions weren’t on. In his periphery, Hank could see Markus speaking, handsome and somber. Drone cameras ringed his head, their tiny LEDs jewel-bright against the gray stone of the courthouse. Slogans bobbed in and out of view at the bottom of the screen. Many of the signs were holos, showing up backwards. Some were old-fashioned paper-and-marker.

Hank took a stinging sip. At once, the perspective switched to a view from behind Markus’s head. There was no tablet on the podium. Just a grieving man extemporizing about justice denied. A kid in a pink coat hoisted on someone’s shoulders held up a small holo that read: _No More Killer Kops_.

Hank brushed aside the urge to bite down on the inside of his cheek again. _Precious,_ he thought, swigging the last of the liquor. At least he was starting to feel a buzz. His juke selection faded out straight into oldies. Bon Jovi, for God’s sake.

“That’s my cue,” he said. The readout on his credit meter was painfully low, but he waved it in Jimmy’s direction. For once, the money-grubbing bastard waved him away, looking all the more hangdog for it.

“Thanks, pal.” Genuinely grateful, Hank maneuvered off the barstool, ignoring the twinge in his lower back. His ergonomic desk chair was only a memory now. “We’re going,” he told Connor. The only response was the scrape of chair legs against the pitted concrete floor.

It was colder outside, as if the heavy clouds had drawn the snow back up and left a dry-ice freeze in its place. Stinking sewer vents pushed lazy steam into the air.

“Goddamn.” Hank drew his inadequate jacket over his middle. The credit meter would take a hit, but he ordered up a LyftCab, anyway. There was a little garage off West Baltimore that would dispatch one of the electric pods in pretty decent time.

Connor stood beside him, hands at its sides, mindless of the cold.

Hank blew whiskey-scented breath into his palms and rubbed them, his calluses scratching.

“You feel colder because alcohol causes dilation of the blood vessels,” Connor said. “The claim that drinking strong liquor makes one warmer is a myth.”

“So were androids,” said Hank, pulling up his collar. “Once upon a time.”

A little driverless bubble rounded the corner, its electric engine almost inaudible. The familiar pink logo shone from the front windshield. The interior was blessedly warm and smelled like cleaning solution. No doubt they were doused at least once a day. Hank might have been one of the few who remembered when the company still had drivers and the cars smelled like Black & Milds. Nine times out of ten there was Jesus music on the speakers.

The new generation of cabs was silent. That and they all had biomaterial sensors after enough people had taken advantage of the missing driver to screw in the back seat. They tended to forget the cameras. There had been a whole site on the Interlink devoted to LyftCam footage. Hank could pass a decent Saturday night with his console, a few beers, and a hand down his shorts before the site started charging for views.

“Seeing the husband of the man you killed makes you uncomfortable.”

Hank clenched his fists. He’d been so caught up in the past that he’d forgotten about Connor. He shook his head. “The husband of the man who gunned down my partner in cold blood. Yes, it makes me ‘uncomfortable.’”

“You believe you did the right thing,” Connor said. Matter-of-fact, not a question.

“Clearly, it doesn’t matter what I believe.”

“Simon Brandt. What was his crime?”

Hank turned, incensed and ready to bring it if the thing wanted to start shit. “Are you dense?” He flicked the android in the temple. It was pretty subdued as reactions went; he wanted to smash the thing’s face against the plexi. “I just said it. Rewind your memory banks and catch up, genius.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you, Hank. I was able to review all of the files from your trial.” Connor paused and looked down at his lap, playing at deference. “I understand what you did. I don’t understand why.”

“Let me ask you something. You ever like somebody just because you know he’s better than you’ll ever be?”

Connor did the pondering thing again. “Self-image is unnecessary for an android. I simply am.”

Hank huffed, his breath leaving a foggy spot on the plexi. Almost at once, the bloom of moisture was eaten away by the ambient heating. Hank placed his fingertip on the spot where it had been. “I guess not,” he mumbled. The car was passing underneath I-40 headed toward Fremont. Hank’s favorite burger place, the Chicken Feed, was tucked below the overpass off Schroeder. His stomach grumbled its longing as they passed.

It was silent in the car aside from the hiss of tires on cold asphalt.

Without warning, Connor laughed aloud. A shockingly natural sound. It startled Hank enough that he went for his holster on instinct. Not that his weapon was there anymore.

“I get it now,” said Connor in a bright voice. The thing even slapped its knee like a person. “In the bar. You were referring to sexual intercourse.”

Hank’s jaw dropped. “What? When?”

Connor looked at him. “Fluid. Lubrication. I get it now.” It was smiling, showing a hint of perfect white teeth.

Hank wondered what they were made of. He sniffed. “Bravo, gear-head. Maybe CyberLife will give you a medal.”

Connor lapsed into silence and turned to look out the window, a half-smile remaining on its face.

The machine refused to be brought down. Maybe it was programming. At the same time that it pissed Hank off, it also dredged up some reluctant admiration from the murky recesses of his mind. He’d known people like that. Well, one or two. In a whole world, that’s nothing. A blip on the radar. But in one lifetime it was rare.

Hank frowned and stared out his own window. The tiny puddle of meltwater in his memory iced over again. Let it thin out too much and it might crack, opening up to God-knows-what underneath. He rubbed his hands as if they were still cold. Winter was a bitch, but at least he could wrap himself up against it.

The single-story at 1226 Pall Mall Road was the only house on the street with a fence. It was chain-link, tall, ugly—wound through in patches with dead or dying ivy. The neighbors hated it, which gave Hank a good bit of satisfaction. Woodberry was working class, no frills. No neighborhood association to give him grief.

He kept the lawn up so Sumo could have a decent place to roll around and drop his unearthly huge dumps. The only plant on the property was a rosebush in the southeast corner of the backyard. It never flowered and the leaves were leathery and ragged, but the thing was apparently too stubborn to die. Hank considered putting a stipulation in his will than when he croaked, the bush would be uprooted and burned. Good luck to them, considering the rows of wicked purple-green thorns lining every stem. The dog wouldn’t even piss on it.

A pleasant voice announced their destination. The cab’s doors unlatched and slid open.

Watching Connor’s head and shoulders pop up on the other side of the car made Hank realize it had been ten years or more since he’d had another person in his house. _Oh, wait_. Still wouldn’t be a _person_ , really. But he couldn’t help a little embarrassment at the state of the place. Was living in squalor a reportable offense?

Sighing, Hank pressed his thumb to the old biometric padlock on the front gate. The dingy curtains in the front room moved: Sumo trying to tuck his monster snout under the hem to get a good look outside. He made a crappy guard dog, truth be told. Had this sort of slow and questioning bark, if he barked at all. Hank wondered what he’d make of Connor.

The android was holding the padlock, studying its scanner panel, when Hank made it to the door. He heard heavy doggy breathing and the _tick-tick_ of blunt claws on the entryway floor. At least the front door had a DNA lock. Hank licked his fingertip and swiped it across the receptor strip and the bolt slid free. No technology for germaphobes, that. Maybe the obsessive-compulsive made do with nice, clean retinal scanners. Light in his eyes made Hank feel like he was on the wrong side of the table in an interview room.

Snuffling and wheezing, Sumo poked his muzzle out the door at the first chance. Hank had managed to get him to stop rearing up and pawing at people. He was heavy enough to knock a good-sized person over if they didn’t expect it. Instead, he did these little pops with his front legs, six inches or so off the ground, his jowls flapping with each one.

As soon as he could get his shoulders out, he barreled through the door and ran up the cracked path toward Connor. He stopped a couple feet away, not growling, just sizing up.

Looking unconcerned (or faking it well), Connor extended a hand toward Sumo, palm down, in textbook “get-to-know-the-dog” style. He’d probably read about Sumo in one of the files, which Hank found a little disappointing.

Ducking his shaggy head, the dog padded forward and put his nose right against the android’s hand. He stood there sniffing for so long Hank started to suspect Connor was pulling some sort of robot hypnosis on him. But then Sumo flicked out his tongue, leaving a big swath of doggy slobber over Connor’s knuckles.

The machine raised its eyebrows. After a second, it bent slightly and scratched behind Sumo’s ear.

Hank scowled and went inside. The smell of stale pizza and mildew greeted him. He couldn’t get his damn monkey suit off fast enough. The jacket got dropped on the back of the reclining chair, and the rest came off in the bedroom, tossed on the floor. House slippers, a henley he had to squeeze a little over his belly. A pair of old sweatpants, balls swinging free inside. As it should be.

Connor was standing in the entry hall with Sumo doing a tongue-wagging dance around his knees.

“Let him out the door,” Hank called, heading for the kitchen. “You can leave it open.” There were five cans left of a six-pack in the fridge. Beer and a half-full bottle of mustard: that was about it. He looked over at the kitchen counter, piled with pizza boxes beside an immaculate sink. Maybe Chinese tonight.

“Hank,” Connor said from the kitchen doorway. Goddamned ninja didn’t make a sound when he walked. “You might save on the cost of heating your house if you close the front door.”

“That’s what I keep the pizza boxes for,” Hank said, hauling out the five-pack. “Burn ‘em for warmth.”

“You—” Connor started. It wrinkled its nose a little, a bizarre expression Hank hadn’t yet seen. “I get it. A joke.”

The crackle and fizz of the can opening was sweet music. Pull tabs were among the old technologies it didn’t make sense to replace. Hank slurped at the bubble of foam that rose. “So you think,” he said. He’d just set the beer down on the table beside the recliner when Sumo came bounding in again, shaking off snowflakes. He charged right into Hank’s leg, heavy tail going like a rug beater.

Hank plunged his hand into the furry ruff, cold on top and warm underneath. “Hey, buddy. Hey, boy.” The YardBot whirred to life outside just before the door closed. Connor, he assumed. Acting like a butler. If it tried to clean up, Hank decided he would chuck a beer at its head.

It felt different crashing into the old chair this time, which he had always done after a hard day or a chunk of brutal overtime. Now it seemed...unearned. And the memory foam under its corduroy cover felt less like a cradle and more like a trap for the unwary. Like Hank might wake up at some point, when the days began to blur together, and find himself grown into the chair with hideous fungal roots.

He slugged the beer, anxious to forget.

Connor walked in and sat stiffly on the creaky sofa. It gave a long look at the cans that were starting to sweat puddles onto the old wood, but said nothing.

Hank flicked on the screen in the corner of the room. _Underwater Real Estate_ was on. Some young couple was fighting over a bubble condo in the tropical shallows where Fort Lauderdale used to be. Pricey, but still less expensive than shoreline property like Orlando. A bronzed-looking man was standing in the background in most of the shots. Doing nothing, just watching. Blank expression on a face worthy of a _Telemundo_ drama. It hit Hank all at once: probably an android, a domestic.

 _Helluva pool boy for the missus._ It didn’t take cop instincts to tell from their griping and bickering that the rich newlyweds wouldn’t last long, anyway.

After that, it all sort of faded.

He woke up what might have been minutes or hours later. His mouth was dry and tasted like he’d been chewing on gym socks. Wincing, he grabbed the half-empty can from the tabletop and took a swig. It was piss-warm.

Connor still sat on the sofa, spine straight and hands resting on knees.

A burst of applause from the screen’s speakers. Hank had the misfortune of looking over at it just as Amanda Stern’s face filled the screen. She had changed out of that morning’s severe gray suit deep ruby dress and a black velvet coat with a fur collar, even going so far as to put on small, silver earrings. The resulting effect was like a poodle cut on a hunting hound. _Hell_ , he mused, _maybe Stern is an android._ She had always taken pains to set herself aside, shunning cop lingo and gallows humor. Or _any_ humor. Hank wasn’t sure he’d ever even seen her drink coffee.

It was tough to imagine her as a rookie. Nobody could ever pin down her age, though many had tried. It was honestly as if she had sprung fully formed out of the inlaid Seal of the City of Baltimore in the headquarters entryway. Or like someone waved a magic wand at a copy of the city code.

 _I wish I was a real boy_.

Hank snorted, but the joke rang hollow.

When he glanced over again, Connor was looking at him.

“I was thinking,” it said.

“That’s dangerous.”

“I have a few ideas that might help you sleep better. I researched several options while you were unconscious.”

If the nap had refreshed him, Hank felt any benefit flee just then, dropping like a gambler’s credit meter. “Didn’t realize you were a doctor now, too.”

“Far from it,” Connor said. “Though automated surgeons have been shown in clinical trials to reduce error to one one-thousandth of a percent compared with human surgeons.” It raised a sculpted eyebrow. “Rest was a factor.”

Hank narrowed his eyes, the first tendrils of a headache starting to prod at his temples. Was the thing having a go at him? With that unreadable expression, he couldn’t be sure. “I bet,” he said, picking up one of the unopened beers. It sat in a small lake of condensation. The can barely felt cooler than his skin.

“Do you know what sleep apnea is?” Connor asked.

Hank didn’t answer. He only tapped on the aluminum can, trying to decide whether to open it or ferry it back to the freezer for a quick chill.

“You stopped breathing for an average of two-point-three seconds several times over the course of your nap. And—”

“And?” Hank asked.

“You snored.”

“The dog snores.”

Connor leaned forward, bracing its elbows on its thighs. “Sumo does not suffer from obstructed breathing. Only gas. You may consider a different kind of food.”

“Oh, _Jesus_ ,” Hank said, sitting back hard, the chair emitting a pained squeal. “I’ve died and gone to hell.”

“There is an implantable device that can help open your airway—” Connor started.

“Nobody’s _implanting_ anything in me,” Hank said.

“Experts also suggest sleep apnea can be eased with weight loss.”

The headache spiked. Hank twisted in the chair and hurled the unopened can at the android’s head.

It caught the beer in one pale hand like an outfielder snatching a pop fly back from the fence. After no more than two seconds, Connor tossed the can back to Hank, underhand.

The aluminum was so cold that he dropped it in his lap, shocked. Sure enough, when he picked it up again, it felt fresh out of a cooler. Hank gaped. “You—?”

“Yes,” Connor said, offering a smile. “I’m able to adjust the temperature of the thirium that cycles through my biocomponents.”

“The blue stuff,” said Hank, wiggling his fingers. “In your hand. The tubes. Whatever.”

Nodding, Connor said, “Yes. In your files, your superiors consistently noted that you are observant. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone else ask about my circulatory mechanism before.” It ducked its head, looking sheepish again. It could be damn convincing. “That is, anyone other than bioengineers.”

“Can you make your hand warmer, too?”

Another nod. “My skin is designed to resist both extreme heat and cold.”

Hank pushed the tab and fragrant bubbles rushed up and over the can’s edge. He sipped them away. “I’ll be damned.”

“I feel like—” Connor paused. “Like we...started on the wrong foot.”

Hank grunted. He wasn’t going to deny it.

“I’m not here to get in your way,” Connor continued. “My mission is to observe, but also to interact.”

“Your mission? From who?”

“From CyberLife. All CyberLife androids are created to facilitate a task. But our overriding objective is to learn by immersion.”

Maybe it was the cold beer, but Hank’s headache was starting to ease. “Learn to imitate humans.”

“To interact with them seamlessly. Acquired experiences enter a feedback loop between us and CyberLife, regularly expanding by orders of magnitude.”

“Huh,” Hank said. He still wanted the android at arm’s length, but it was close to impossible to tamp down decades of instinct sniffing out useful information. If Connor could play the game, so could he. And maybe beat it. “So...teaching other androids to be more human.”

“I guess,” Connor said.

Hank lifted an eyebrow. “I’ve got the feeling you don’t _guess_ about much.”

“No,” Connor admitted. “But I’ve heard humans say that when something is difficult to explain.”

Taking another sip of his beer, Hank let that sink in. He could probably no more describe what it was like to get tired, be thirsty, have to pee, get old, than Connor could put across what it meant to be hooked into his _feedback loop_.

But a Tuesday afternoon on the day they took away everything he’d known for more than thirty years wasn’t the time for that kind of discussion anyway. “What else did my files say?” Hank asked.

Connor was silent for a moment. “You had the highest solve rate in the Homicide division for fifteen out of twenty-two years. You started on patrol in the Northwestern District of Area Three. You were promoted to the rank of Detective in 2020, at the age of twenty-nine. Five months with the Pawn Shop Unit, _four_ months on the Sex Offense Unit, the remainder of your tenure in Homicide. You were offered a chance to take the Sergeant’s exam three times and declined each time. You were awarded the Silver Star following the confrontation in which your partner, Luther Freeman, was killed.” Connor cleared its throat. Seemed genuine enough. “You never wore the medal after the day you received it. Even at Detective Freeman’s funeral.”

Hank sighed. Even chilled, his beer suddenly tasted metallic and flat. “Sounds about right.”

His voice much softer now when not reciting stark facts, Connor spoke again. “May I ask you something?”

“I get the feeling you’re going to, anyway.” Hank jiggled the can, listening to the fizz and slosh, then replaced it on the wet tabletop. He braced for the thump of the crowbar against his vault of unshared memories.

“Do you still have the medal?” Connor asked.

 _Not as bad as it could have been_. “Yeah.” Even though Hank waited with a breath lodged painfully in his chest, no more questions came.

Instead, Connor had turned toward the screen.

Amanda Stern’s face filled most of it, the watery daylight shaping her strong features. Hank at least knew that her roots were in some tropical place, but she seemed uniquely suited to the gray pall that overhung Baltimore for most of the year. It was tough to picture her amid the painted stucco and the music and the vivid, dripping flowers the tour companies used to sell trips to disappearing places. The Atlantic Ocean had swallowed up land in the hurricane zone from Trinidad northward. Turks and Caicos, Havana, Miami: all gone. Hank doubted he would make it to any of the remaining ones in his lifetime.

Besides, as much as he hated to admit it, Baltimore suited him, too.

Onscreen, the cameras had backed away to a panoramic shot. The new mayor now stood among scattered holos of city landmarks. Hank noted with disdain that none were placed above the level of her shoulders. Acting the mini despot already.

There was the Phoenix Shot Tower, which had just passed its two hundred twentieth year standing, thanks to conservation efforts and some subtle nano-bond cement. Fort McHenry and its flag, Camden Yards, the Hyatt Millennia with its ridiculous upside-down design. And City Hall, of course.

Stern pointed to each of them, one after the other—a benevolent deity. Either that or some radiation monster out of the harbor giving the city a heads-up on its proposed path of destruction.

“Hail, Godzilla,” Hank muttered.

“What do you mean?” asked Connor.

Damn his keen ears. “Nothing. What do you know about _her_?”

“Mayor Stern?”

“Yeah,” Hank said.

Connor looked back at the screen, where the holo buildings glittered and the assembled audience clapped. “Amanda Stern, born Amanda King, July fifteenth, 1999, to Gideon and Roselle King of Bridgetown, Barbados. Both parents deceased.”

“Wait,” Hank said. “She’s _married_?” He couldn’t see anyone putting up with that sort of cold company for long. Not that he himself was prime marriage material. Every time a person who was hitched made the Homicide squad, senior detectives started an unofficial countdown clock to the inevitable divorce. In Hank’s time, only two had stayed married. One, if guys who got killed on duty didn’t count.

“Widowed,” said Connor. “Spouse Samuel Stern, equity investor. Died February twelfth, 2031. Pancreatic cancer.”

At that, Hank wrinkled his nose. “Nobody dies of cancer anymore.”

“Medical records indicate that Stern refused conventional treatment.”

Hank huffed. He wasn’t so sure that if he came up polka-dotted with tumors he wouldn’t tell the doctors exactly where to stuff their treatment, too. He just didn’t want to end up in diapers or something at the end. It sure did piss him off that jackasses like Gavin Reed could smoke those black market coffin nails and still have the cancer zapped right out of them in a few hours. If anyone deserved to hack up lung chunks, it was Reed.

Connor was still rattling off stats. “Made detective in 2027 at the age of twenty-eight. Worked Major Crimes in the Chicago Police Department for two years, then was promoted to Sergeant. Made Lieutenant a month before her husband’s death, after which she transferred to Baltimore.”

“Yeah,” Hank said, looking back at the dazzling and idealized presentation. “Deputy commish in 2042, then Greavette retired and handed her the commissioner job. January forty-four. Dawn of a new regime.” He snorted.

“Former Commissioner William Arnold Greavette,” Connor said. “Did you like him?”

Hank scratched his chin. His beard had needed a trim for at least a week. “Huh. He made _me_ look progressive,” he told Connor. “But he didn’t get in my way.”

“And Amanda Stern did.”

“You gonna go tattle?”

Connor frowned. “I don’t report to Mayor Stern. I report to the Department of Corrections.”

“Six of one,” said Hank, waving him off. “She likes to put her personal stamp on every solve. Leaving us with more data entry and less credit.”

Watching the city collectively kiss Stern’s ass held no appeal. But at that moment, neither did any of the other StreamTV options. A nagging little voice in the back of Hank’s mind told him that sitting around getting walleyed would just prove Reed and the others right—without a badge, he was just about as useless as the Pope’s balls.

Anyway, he hadn’t eaten all day, and Sumo could use a little exercise.

He picked up the half-finished beer, hesitated a second, then chugged it. Afterwards, he tossed it at the screen, where it hit with a hollow sound and bounced onto the old rug.

Sumo lifted his huge head.

“That’s the city she wants you to see,” Hank said. “All the shiny things those rich Delaware pricks built. But all of that is on its way out, just like them.” He heaved himself off the squealing chair.

Connor was looking up at him in surprise.

“C’mon, gear-head,” said Hank, going for his old duffle coat. “I’m gonna show you the _real_ Baltimore.”

It was sliding toward evening, but outside the temperature seemed to have eased a few degrees. The air held that fleecy, dark scent of imminent snow. Might be the first big one of the year.

Sumo, holding the end of his leash in his slobbery mouth, rocketed right into Hank’s ancient Tesla, the brush of his tail stirring up dust. Connor opened the passenger side door and stopped short, an expression of naive confusion on its face.

Hank laughed and cocked a thumb in the direction of the rear seats. “Dog’s got seniority, pal. You can take the back.”

It did so, if maybe a little stiffly.

When Hank flipped it into reverse and stomped the accelerator, Sumo took it in stride, digging into the seat cover. He let the leash drop, along with a generous helping of froth.

In the rear view mirror, Hank saw the android’s hand shoot out to grab the handle mounted above the door. Thing his dad used to call the “Jesus strap.” If he wasn’t mistaken, its face looked a little pinched. Could machines get annoyed?

Hank certainly hoped so.

There was a thump as the ancient charging cord was yanked free of its port and sailed backward to smack the garage door. _Chez Hank_ wasn’t swanky enough for an in-ground charge pad.

First stop was the Chicken Feed. Just the thought of a Triple Bypass Burger (with cheese) had Hank’s mouth watering before he caught the scent of the grill. Raising his gaze to the rear view again, he caught sight of those same parallel lines between Connor’s eyebrows. “Relax,” he said. “It’s just a pit stop. This isn’t the main event.”

His stomach cramped when the thin, cold breeze brought along a good whiff of cooking meat. Connor followed along, tentative, like the stand was an enemy camp. At least Sumo knew to stay in the car.

When the android approached, it stood alongside Hank, hands clasped, looking up at the overhead menu. Hank knew it by heart; it hadn’t changed once in twenty years.

“No chicken,” Connor observed.

“Huh?”

“The name. It seems to contrast with the fact that there is no chicken on the menu.”

Hank laughed. “Yeah. It’s a ‘fuck you’ to Freddy’s dad. Built this big vegetarian empire, croaked of a heart attack. Freddy took his chunk of the inheritance and bought a burger stand. He’s sixty-five and he’ll probably outlive me.”

As they watched, Freddy—a squat, frog-faced man who worked the grill six days a week—layered two dripping beef patties between three slices of cheese and a toasted bun. He slapped it into a basket lined with wax paper. The thick-cut french fries were still sizzling with grease when Freddy dumped them in alongside the burger and passed it all over to Hank.

He was almost faint with hunger. “Give me some of that pineapple stuff,” he told Freddy. “Large, if you don’t mind.”

Connor’s eyes went saucer-huge as it eyed up the meal. Hank chuckled and dumped a flurry of salt onto his fries from the countertop shaker. “This is one of the last places in town that doesn’t use lab-grown.” He picked up the burger, fragrant runnels of juice spilling into his palms and down his wrists. “One hundred percent real cow. Probably munching grass yesterday.”

“I doubt it will matter,” Connor said as Hank took a bite, “but this meal contains one-point-two-five times the recommended calorie intake for someone of your age and…”

Even if it was less effective mid-chew, Hank shot him the stink eye.

“...height,” Connor finished. “Got it. You don’t care.”

Hank swallowed. “Bingo, my annoying friend.”

“I know you mean it sarcastically,” Connor said, “but I do hope that at the end of our partnership you will consider me a friend.”

There was enough shoe-shuffling, aw-shucks affectation in the statement that it caught Hank off guard.

Connor raised its head before Hank could get off a withering comeback. “Even if we are merely interacting like it.”

Hank grunted and half-shrugged. He was far from the best foil for something looking to learn how to be human. Regular people had friends, families, hobbies. They cared about clothes and sports and whatever the United Nations was doing. For probably two decades, Hank’s most consistent conversation partners had been suspects and perps. He only liked yapping if he was trying to get something out of someone.

His chats with the dog were one-sided to say the least. This poor kid—this _android_ , that is—had an uphill battle if all it had to work with were bitter parolees.

“What does it taste like?” Connor asked. “My tongue has sensors that analyze chemical components, even in trace amounts. But I don’t ‘taste’ the way you do.”

Hank faltered, the sandwich halfway to his mouth. “Shit, I dunno. You’ve never had a burger?”

“It would serve no practical purpose.”

“Don’t know what to tell you. I can’t explain the color blue to a blind guy.”

“With the invention of bio-compatible artificial eyes, blindness has been eradicated in humans.”

Hank sniffed. “Touché.” Half of the bottom bun, already soaked through and hanging on limply, tore away and fell onto wax paper with a dull, wet sound. Hank’s stomach was still clamoring, but the latest bite had turned to lukewarm mush in his mouth. He washed it down with a pull on the too-sweet soda and gave up on the remainder.

“It’s Sumo’s lucky night,” he said, gathering up the greasy paper into a messy bundle. The plastic basket deposited in a tray by the lone trash can, Hank walked back to the car and set the leftover food on the ground beside it. As soon as the passenger door opened, Sumo poured out and set to devouring, paper and all. At least a quarter pound of expensive beef gone in two seconds flat.

Connor’s face betrayed no reaction.

Licking his chops, tail going a mile a minute, Sumo parked his ass on the concrete and looked up, panting.

Hank held out empty hands. “No more, bud.”

The dog closed his mouth, sniffed the ground for missed tidbits, then heaved himself back into the seat.

“Right, then,” Hank said, securing his cup in the center console. Connor had taken the back seat without complaint. Hell, maybe it _did_ learn. Hank caught its eye in the rear view. “Wait ‘til you get a load of this.”

For once, he cruised past Jimmy’s without a thought to slowing down. It was just about dusk and the place that the BPD called Magpie city was about to rev up to full splendor. Not that most cops—beat or otherwise—would consider it splendid. As far as they were concerned, Magpie City was populated by aimless hippie bastards draining the system and blighting the landscape.

As for that first claim, in large part the Magpies didn’t rely on city assistance. They used generators to power their tents and structures. The ones who grew their own test tube meat traded with the hydroponic farmers. As for the second, well… Magpies were true nomads, ready to go at any moment. Every once in a while, a city official would get it in their head to roust the camp and restore Franklin Square Park. A judicious sprinkling of beanbag guns and tear gas later, the Magpies would disperse into the wilderness of the greater West Side for a day or two. But never more. Their tents were inflatables, their weird art perched in the backs of trucks and carts. With power enough to run a whole neighborhood now small enough for one person to hold, it was nothing like the tent cities of old.

Hank parked on Strickler, where the Rowe Renaissance public housing projects stood sparkling white but empty. The sunset would be muted behind clouds—a thin, gray line on the horizon the only clue to its end. A hard-edged chill had settled in. Hank pulled warming gloves from behind one of the Tesla’s sun visors and pinched the tabs to start the chemical reactions going in their tiny, woven capillaries. He had to wonder whether that was close to the way Connor’s skin worked.

They walked east on Fayette—Hank keeping a firm hold of Sumo, who was following the sights and scents of human activity. Guess who didn’t get much socialization, either.

Connor followed close, at Hank’s right but a half-step behind.

Facing away from the fading day, they watched lights flicker on inside translucent shapes: domes, towers, pyramids. A couple that looked like those Egyptian obelisks. The tents’ tough skins were each a different color, with similar shades grouped together. From north to south, violets were crammed against a clutch of orange ones, moving to blue, red, yellow, green—pale and dark and every hue in between.

The low hum of chatter drifted their way, along with competing odors of cooking food.

Hank pulled Sumo up short and the dog sat on the cold concrete. A sculpture—at first barely visible—lit up suddenly, thousands of tiny, white LEDs winking on from the base upward. Its frame, cobbled together with scrap aluminum looted from empty condos, looked like a deformed cactus. At the highest point, the LEDs outlined four huge blades that turned lazily in the dark. Hank knew the Magpies called this one the _Moulin Blanc_ (ha, ha). It was the park’s tallest structure and the first to go on every night. It was also the only useful one: its raggedy conductors supplied wind power to the camp.

He looked over at Connor, whose face was lit up with a pastel glow. It was a mystery why they’d decided to make that model so oddly pale. It was nothing like the tanned-looking android from StreamTV, whose skin at least gave it a shot at blending in.

Connor’s lips were slightly parted. “What is it?”

“Locals—well, the folks who don’t like it—call it Magpie city,” said Hank. “Some of the people in there got a kick out of it and started calling _themselves_ Magpies. You know, collecting shiny things, or whatever. But _this_ they just call the Gallery.”

Still appearing transfixed, Connor asked, “Why don’t people like it?”

“Same reason they didn’t like Franklin Square thirty years ago. It’s a place to get high.”

“Drugs,” Connor said. It wasn’t a question, but he looked to Hank to confirm.

Hank nodded. “You ever heard of sten?”

Connor’s eyelids fluttered slightly. Its body went stiff.

“Don’t stroke out on me,” Hank said, edging away, gripping Sumo’s leash tighter.

Then the whole thing stopped as soon as it had begun. “I had to access non-local files,” Connor told him. “I’m sorry if it was disturbing. The narcotic called ‘sten’ is a psychoactive that affects numerous centers in the brain. It was discovered by a research team investigating a treatment for schizophrenia. The effects mimic Stendhal syndrome, named for the alias of French writer Marie-Henri Beyle. Drug users may experience elevated heart rate, disorientation—even panic, dissociative states, and hallucinations.” Connor frowned. “The effects are most pronounced when the user is surrounded by...objects of beauty.” The android shook its head as if trying to dislodge bad information.

“Yeah,” Hank said. “It hits some people harder than others.” He looked out over the Gallery, where trails of LEDs raced along the spiky limbs of other weird sculptures. “For a while. Like any drug, you build up tolerance. Sunsets and naked statues just don’t do it for you anymore. _Then_ you go and build something like this.” He raised a gloved hand toward the insane carnival flickering to life in front of them. “Just to keep your high.”

“You don’t like these...Magpies...either,” Connor said.

Hank chewed the inside of his cheek. His nose was going numb. Sumo shuffled and huffed steam into the night air. “It’s complicated. There’s ugly shit out there. Shit you wish your brain would forget. And that’s most of life. The way I see it, if you go around pretending it doesn’t exist at all, that’s just drawing things out. ‘Cause when reality hits, it hits twice as hard.”

Connor nodded. “But…”

Hank huffed, allowing himself a brief smile. Then he raised his hand toward the Gallery again. “But _that_ is a big old blot on the ‘perfect city’ Stern is trying to sell.”

After a short pause, Connor said, “In your files, your superiors often noted that you showed resistance to authority.”

That brought an outright laugh. Sumo stood up, looking backward at Hank with big, wet eyes. Hank half-raised his hand to slap Connor on the shoulder before he caught himself. _The less I touch it the better_ , he thought, remembering the warm, deceptive handshake.

Instead, he turned to go back to the car. “That,” he shouted over his shoulder, “is because sometimes authority is _wrong_.”

The whole walk back to Strickler Street, he didn’t turn to look at the Gallery, or at Connor, again.


	2. Interlude: August 2048

The decision to switch off his commlink earpiece was an easy one. Hell, Hank had practiced it enough times: idly while in the cruiser, even in his bathroom mirror at home. It would end up counting only one time— _this_ time—because he had to be alone. Others would want to reason, want to negotiate. Luckily for Hank, that option had come off the table a year and a half ago, when he was still soaked in Luther’s blood and screaming for backup. Helpless, trying to keep his fingertips from sliding into the ragged holes the rounds had blown through his clothing.

He was there to return the favor, if it cost him his reputation or even his life. It could all fade out—everything after that day—as long as Brandt was gone, too.

Hank hoped that somebody would tell Kara—wherever she was and whatever the fuck she was calling herself these days. That at least she’d know.

Unholstering his weapon brought on a little flutter of anticipation. He squashed it with a couple of long, steady breaths while tracing the carbon fiber ring of the Glock’s trigger guard. Every contour of the G-19 Gen8 felt familiar. Hank knew its heft, its recoil, its trigger sensitivity down to the microgram. All other things being equal, he would have preferred to use his own Sig Sauer X-Eleven. It was by far the most expensive thing that he owned, house and car included. It was a beautiful little thing: with infrared target tracking, customizable lethality, stability control, and grip correction. It practically shot around corners, and it was DNA-imprinted to Hank alone.

But this wasn’t an assassination. At least, it couldn’t look that way, not to IA or to the courts. The Glock would do. A few days before, he’d downlinked _highly_ illegal specs for the Sig in case he survived and they tossed his place. Public 3DP booths had restrictions on printing weapons, but they were so easy to bypass it made hacking a credit meter look like work. The guys in Financial Crimes might disagree, but in Hank’s mind show-offy corporate douchebags who upped the increments on their credit meters just to wave them around deserved a gouging.

He took out the earpiece and pocketed it. No other voices but Simon’s. And Luther’s, which still invaded his thoughts. When Luther was alive, it had always been threaded through with a bright hope, the source of which Hank never could figure out. These days, his former partner only piped up when he was about to shoot himself in the foot.

Hank ignored Dead Luther almost every time.

The alleyway was black and stifling. Simon would be putting in overtime at the Center for a Better Baltimore because Hank had been watching him do it for weeks. Working cop hours, it was a wonder his husband, Markus, didn’t drop his ass in the dirt.

But they were both young and dumb and still thought they could shake things up. A person changes. _People_ —plural—have been the same forever and ever, amen. In the ‘30s, when sea levels took out half of Delaware, all the old money left and flooded Baltimore instead. For a while, it was great, sure: if Joe Average couldn’t nab a job working for one of the transplants, he could get one for the construction firms building their houses and banks and office buildings. Crime took a nosedive; the whole department rustled with uneasy joking about mall security and crossing guard gigs.

Then the Real Deal hit and all the honest, working-class nobodies pulled up stakes for the Midwest. It might have been okay if the goddamn Republicans hadn’t snuck in a rider barring anyone with a criminal conviction from Deal funds. After that, the Charm City rich walled themselves in and bought androids. And the poor, well…

Hank slipped around the corner. He could see Simon’s blond head in the circular glow of a desk lamp, lit like that creepy old painting of the late-night diner.

Hank wasn’t angry now—he wasn’t feeling anything. Just doing a job, completing a circuit. Luther was silent in his head.

After the shooting, he’d leaned on the convenience store owner for three months until he broke and turned over the footage from a supposedly broken CCTV. Facial rec ID’d Simon Brandt, buying an energy bar and an Orangina. _Who drinks that?_ Not that Hank would have touched the stuff before, but now he couldn’t even look at it. Simon Brandt, the outline of the gun clear under his tight-fitting shirt, jacketless in the midwinter cold.

CSI had found the energy bar and the drink in a trash can by the alley, unopened and wiped down.

The footage put Brandt in the area, but didn’t quite put the gun in his hand. It might satisfy a civilian, but Hank was PD. Months and months more, a dozen dead-end interviews, and nothing. Then, some Helping Harry surrendered a pistol he’d bought at a flea market because he couldn’t figure out how to break the fingerprint lock.

The guy was either dumber than dirt or had never seen a DNA seal. The gun would have been marked for meltdown if one of the lab guys hadn’t run a sequence match on a whim. The DB spat out Brandt’s name in connection with a 2039 arrest at a socialist protest in DC. The face in the mugshot was round with youth and sported an ugly shiner that forced his left eye closed, but the features were the same.

When ballistics came back with a match to the bullets from Luther’s body, Hank wanted to scream, punch someone. He drank himself unconscious instead.

Then the next day, renewed purpose taking the edge off the hangover, he started planning.

Everything for one moment.

A little tin bell on the door went nuts when Hank opened the door at CBB headquarters. He put his hand over it. If he met Brandt in the little hallway leading to his office, neither of them would be visible in the windows.

Brandt called out a _hello_ , but Hank didn’t answer.

After a minute, he came out of the office, eyes narrow and face worried, holding something that glinted in the light from the open bathroom. The air reeked of disinfectant.

“Who are you?” Brandt asked.

“Police,” Hank said. “Put it down.”

Brandt looked at his hand like he’d forgotten he was holding something at all.

Hank could see it a little clearer now. A snowglobe. A fucking snowglobe.

“Let me see your badge,” said Brandt.

“No. Put the weapon down.”

Instead of complying, Brandt curled his arm inward, holding the globe against his belly. Glitter swirled inside the dome. “I triggered the silent alarm.”

Hank leveled the Glock at Brandt’s chest. “You don’t have one.”

“What do you want?”

“April 2047,” Hank said. “You shot a cop outside the Kay Cee Mart on Bentalou. Detective Luther Freeman.”

Looking stricken, Brandt said, “I didn’t shoot anybody!”

“He died right on that street,” Hank said, keeping his voice even and firm. “His wife was pregnant, for God’s sake.”

“I told you, I never shot anyone,” Brandt said, light on his feet now, ready to bolt.

Hank settled his fingertip into the curve of the trigger.

“Listen, I can prove it to you. I’m sure—” Brandt swung his head violently from side to side, looking for something to show. His free hand moved, rising to clutch the base of the snowglobe.

Hank squeezed off four shots. The bathroom tile hurled the sound back out, setting up a faint ringing in his right ear.

Brandt dropped the snowglobe. It landed on its heavy base, right-side up. There were wings of spatter behind him, but his shirt only showed four small, dark pits. That held for a second, then the blood bloomed out of each one and spread down his front, a shade drawing down.

Simon Brandt fell onto the speckled floor and spit up blood. His next breath sounded wet. There were few breaths after it, and no words.

Hank pulled on a glove. He picked up the snowglobe and tossed it over his shoulder, glass bursting on tile. Waiting for sirens, he watched the fingers of glittering water spread.


	3. Baltimore - November 2048

Hank woke after twisting and sweating his way through a troubled sleep. He was tangled in cold, damp sheets and thirsty as a camel. Normally, he would have to rush to the bathroom first thing, ignoring stiff muscles and aching knees. Really, he should get it looked at; there was no shoving a gloved finger where the sun don’t shine for a prostate check anymore. It was all molecular imaging now—neat and clean.

His dreams had been filled with glowing balloon-like shapes, which crowded the edges of a deep void. He remembered thinking both the dark and the bright things held a vague sense of menace—and that choosing either one was wrong.  

Peeling away the wet sheets made him shiver. If possible, the bed smelled twice as funky as it had the night before. Grimacing, Hank stripped it down to the bare mattress and plopped the sodden mass of linens in a corner. After a second of consideration, he dropped his t-shirt onto the pile. Most things in his house could use a run through the wash, anyway.

In nothing but his old boxer shorts, Hank walked to the kitchen, rubbing his arms to get the reluctant blood flowing. The lino under his bare feet was chilly. His tongue felt like sandpaper. No time to find a cup—he bent and drank straight from the tap, gulping until his stomach felt tight and relief seemed to stretch all the way into his fingers.

“Good morning.”

Hank sputtered and jumped, sending water spraying everywhere and knocking his lip hard against the faucet. He turned, clutching his mouth and mad as a stepped-on rattlesnake. Because of the pain, he only managed a wordless grunt instead of the stream of profanity he was going for.

Connor stood by the edge of the wall that divided kitchen from living room. Its hand was over its mouth, too. It looked involuntary and weirdly prim. That worked to dull Hank’s temper a little.  

“I’m sorry, Hank,” Connor said. “I thought you heard me.”

“Put a bell on you like a damn cat,” Hank grumbled. He ran a fingertip along his gums. It came away streaked with red.

“I’ll try to do better announcing my presence,” Connor told him. Its hands were clasped in front of it, contrite.

Hank pulled in a breath, planning to tear the android a new one (if he even had one in the first place), but suddenly it didn’t seem worth the effort. Instead, he leaned and spat into the sink. “Don’t worry about it.” He swiped the back of his hand across his lips. Maybe today was the day to trim up. Coarse hair was starting to straggle into his mouth.

Connor was watching him with that flat look, giving nothing away.

Without thinking, Hank pulled in his stomach. He could only just see the tips of his toes. The thatch of hair on his chest had been sandy blond once upon a time. And much smaller, too. He cleared his throat and pushed away from the counter, ducking his chin. “Gonna put in some laundry,” he said, brushing past Connor closely enough to knock shoulders. Lightly.

The android’s immaculate shirt sleeve was undisturbed.

“Guess you don’t need that washed,” Hank called over his shoulder. Would have been nice not to have to sweat, especially last night.

For once, Connor didn’t answer.

Hank scooped up the sheets and a few other stray articles of clothing, clearing patches of the dull wood floor. The touch-light in the musty laundry closet wouldn’t come on, but he still slammed the door behind him. His skin had broken out in gooseflesh again.

He wandered back into the kitchen ten minutes later with a wrinkled button-down over sweatpants. Ridiculous, but better than ratty underwear, considering Connor looked like an action figure newly hatched from its plastic packaging.

The sting in his mouth where he’d rinsed it out was fading. They had stopped putting alcohol in Listerine when mouth cancers suddenly shot through the roof; Big Mouthwash apparently took the fall when nobody would attack booze importers or the vape industry. Hank was pretty sure Listerine had just hung out in Russia, and maybe even got stronger. Cheaper than vodka per milliliter and could make your average Tom, Dick, and Yuri sick enough to qualify for any of the shady clinical trials driving the economy. The pharma companies that hadn’t already pulled up stakes and moved to Moscow or St. Petersburg were at least planning to.

Luckily, the good stuff was back on domestic shelves once cellular therapy broke out and people weren’t losing tongues anymore.

It was only after Hank slapped the button on the coffee maker that he realized Sumo wasn’t circling his feet, whuffing for his breakfast. He looked up, scanning for signs of the dog.

“I fed him,” Connor said. “I believe he’s sleeping on the sofa.”

Hank scowled as the aroma of coffee began to fill the room. Had he done his little begging dance for the machine? “He goes out afterwards,” he said.

“Yes. He went right to the door.” Connor smiled. “The message was clear.”

“Good,” Hank said. _Traitorous mutt._

A low beep signaled that the carafe had filled—same swill they brewed at the office. Neither Hank nor the BPD could afford real coffee beans, but the imitation was passable.

“How was your night?” Connor asked as Hank poured a cup.

“Shitty.” The first scalding sip touched the split skin inside his mouth and made him wince. “You?”

“Thank you for asking, Hank.”

Again that broad, open—even pleasant—expression, like a salesman. A young one who still believes in the product. Hank got the feeling this guy didn’t _do_ insincere. _Machine_ , he corrected himself _._ This _machine._ But in that case, did it even do sincere, either?

“I spent much of the night researching the drug called sten,” Connor started.

Hank had already figured out that eager tone meant a long spiel was in the pipeline.

“I surveyed scientific papers and news articles, as well as other popular media,” it said. “You may find this interesting, Hank: there was an episode of a streaming show called _Addicted_ that focused on sten. However, it only aired once. Critical opinion seemed to reach a consensus that it didn’t cast the drug in a negative enough light: that there were no drawbacks to sten addiction.”

Hank swallowed his mouthful of brew and pointed a finger at Connor’s chest. “I can tell you right now that’s bullshit.”

Connor’s eyebrows drew inward. He— _it_ —tilted its chin, the picture of genuine interest.

There could be hell of a market for android therapists, Hank thought. They would sit there and listen to sad-sack whining hour after hour without wanting to walk out or punch something. Or needing therapy themselves. Then again, you could probably program a toaster to hold a Kleenex box and ask, _How did that make you feel?_

“What do you mean?” asked Connor.

Suddenly, Hank regretted contradicting him. “Just that I’ve dealt with sten-heads. It’s not all dragging some art student out of the Walters for trying to touch the paintings.”

“People using sten have done that?”

“Yeah.”

“So the drug increases criminal tendencies?”

It was way the hell too early and the questions were flying too fast. Hank pressed a fingertip into his temple “No. Sort of. I mean...it’s a lot more complicated than that.”

“Users are more likely to ignore social convention?”

“Sure, maybe.”

Connor stroked his chin. “Contempt for authority?”

“I don’t—” Hank started. Something clicked.  “Hey, what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

The android let its shoulders fall and gave Hank a kicked-puppy look. “Forgive me,” it said. “I can only learn so much from archived sources.”

The coffee was cooling fast. It tasted better and less artificial right out of the pot. Hank dumped the half-cup down the sink drain and went for the carafe. Anyway, it felt good to leave Connor hanging for a while. For a minute, the only sound in the kitchen was the trickle of coffee into his mug. Right as he cleared his throat, Connor shifted its feet and raised its head, listening intently again.

“You wouldn’t have heard this this,” Hank began, “‘cause there was nothing about it on the newsfeeds or the ‘link. Know why?”

Connor shook its head.

“It never made the official statement. Police records only. I mean, this was the early days, when sten first showed up on the scene. It wasn’t illegal yet, and of course not on the Dawes List, either, so you couldn’t get it at any facilities. Nobody knew what to make of it back then. To most of us, it seemed like a stupid fad for hipsters. You know, New York coffee shop types. Maybe those assholes who use magic crystals and say they talk to aliens or whatever. Who the hell else is going to get high on art, right?”

“Right,” Connor said, parroting.

Hank coughed against the back of his hand. It sounded thick and phlegmy. “Then you have that actor, What’s-his-face Torrance. Who bought a house here in—what?—thirty-two? Thirty-three?”

The android froze up and did that weird eyelid-flickering thing again, pulling some data out of thin air.

It wasn’t any less creepy than the first time.

“Braden Torrance,” said Connor. “City property records show a twentieth-century-style estate in Roland Park was purchased under his name in 2033. The house was returned to the market in 2034.”

Hank scoffed. “Braden. Dumb name.”

Connor raised an eyebrow. “‘Braden’ was one of the fifty most popular names for boys in America between 2010 and 2020, though less so than common variations ‘Jaden’ and ‘Caden.’”

Shaking his head, Hank downed a mouthful of the coffee.

“The given name ‘Henry’ was most popular in this country between 1920 and 1930.”

“Fuck right off, _Connor_.”

“The number of humans in the country currently named ‘Connor’ is approximately two-point-two times the number of ‘Bradens.’” Then the thing winked. It actually _winked_.

Hank set the mug down hard on the counter, sloshing coffee over the edge. “Funny guy, huh?” He glared at it. _Why on God’s green earth was it_ so hard _to get fully, righteously furious at the thing?_ That in itself ticked him off enough almost enough to compensate.  

The suspension, that dog-and-pony show of a trial—they’d helped keep Hank fired up, to hold onto his hard edge. Now, apathy tugged at his mind with an insistent little hand. It could be that going out to pasture for good was siphoning something, taking out his backbone piece by piece until he wound up a vegetable just drawing a pension. _Half_ pension, actually. If it came to that, he could probably hold Connor off long enough with a few rounds from the Sig to put one in his own brainpan.

The thought made him want to check on the re-printed gun, which was shrink-wrapped and taped inside the toilet tank. “I’m putting my sheets in the dryer,” he said. “When I come back, you better have something more solid than real estate trivia, or you can stare at the wall at Jimmy’s while I get myself loaded.” Walking away, Hank decided he didn’t even care if Connor checked his meter to see if he had enough credit for more than a round or two.

Dust lay thick as moss on the old washer-dryer unit. Some of the new machines sucked the water right out in a second or two, but they left everything feeling stiff. There was a lot of nostalgia in the hot-metal smell of a tumble dryer. Plus, Sumo liked to sit and watch the socks fly. It was easy to keep a dog entertained.

Connor, Hank told himself, didn’t need entertaining. Don’t need a console if you have all the information and more right in your head. It could probably put itself on a beach or the bar at the Hilton instead of having to look at Hank’s crappy pad. Presuming that it had any judgment one way or the other on the digs.

It was dangerous to give human traits to non-human things. Stupid, too, which was probably why people had been doing it since cavemen started pointing out faces in rocks and trees. Tomatoes shaped like Buddha or the Virgin Mary in a corn chip. There was a name for that, but damned if Hank could remember what it was.

The carpet of dust on the dryer vibrated. He wiped it carefully away with his sleeve. Over the hum, he could hear the tick-tick of Sumo’s claws on the floor before the dog muscled in. Hank swept his foot out of the way to avoid being sat on.

There was quick double rap on the bedroom door frame. Hank edged past Sumo’s bulk.

“I’m here,” Connor said mildly. “Don’t be alarmed.”

Only the toe of one soft, black boot stuck out into the bedroom proper. It was pulled back as Hank stepped from the laundry closet. Connor’s face was expectant, pleading for entry like the world’s politest vampire.

Hank nodded. “So?”

“Braden Torrance left Baltimore after a home invasion incident,” Connor said. “One suspect, one arrest: Olivia Tucker, age twenty-two.”

“That’s what the files say, yeah.”

Tentative, Connor ventured: “Miss Tucker was using sten.”

Hank was circling the room, peeking into cabinets and half-stuck drawers in search of clean sheets. “Bingo.”

“But, Hank—” Connor began.

“Yeah?”

“You were already a Detective. In Homicide. No one was killed in the incident. Why were you involved?”

Hank’s smile was thin and rueful. “It was my dashing good looks,” he said. A good, hard pull freed the bottom drawer of his battered dresser. Inside were a couple of white undershirts wrapped around something heavy. He resisted looking over his shoulder. Pushing the shirts aside, he saw the glint of glass and the shimmer of moving liquid.

 _Snowglobe_.

It was a bottle—a fifth of Auld Scotsman, to be precise. It was almost full. The relief Hank felt was sweet and cool. He slammed the drawer and staggered to his feet. “Few months before the break-in, I’d managed to talk down another sten-head in the tank. Patrol found him knee-deep in the Gwynns Falls Stream, stripped down to his jockey shorts. The guy went nuts in lockup. Blank walls; nothing to look at, I guess.”

He gave up on sheets and sat down hard on the bare mattress. “Some dipshit forgot to lock the door and he was on me in two seconds. I mean, clinging like a monkey. So I took him down, right to the floor, and just talked in his ear for a half hour. I don’t even remember what I said. But he finally quit freaking out and just stared at me.”

Connor stared, too, but there was no madness behind it—just an intense and level need to understand.

Hank looked down, uncomfortable, examining his hairy feet. “I think if I hadn’t had him pinned he would have tried to, you know, _touch_ me or something. He was looking at my whole face over and over like he couldn’t make the parts fit the whole picture. Like he’d never seen a person before.”

Sumo peeked around the door, looking from Hank to Connor and back again. The dryer’s heat had him panting, drool sliding down the middle of his tongue to puddle on the floor.

Hank patted his thigh, but the dog retreated. “When he sobered up a little, I backed off. Convinced the guys to let him go with the standard warning: ‘You keep clean, we’ll stay out of your business.’ They say, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ and they’re always lying. And so are we.”

“Did you physically subdue Olivia Tucker?” asked Connor.

“No.” When Hank curled his toes, the joints crackled. “She’d cut herself to ribbons on the security fence. Like a little, bloody scarecrow. Kept charging us, though. They tranqued her good. When she woke up in the hospital, she couldn’t even tell us how she got to Baltimore. It wasn’t just the sten. She was schizophrenic.”

Connor stood for a few moments, taking it in.

Where real people would sway a little, shift or breath as they think, the android was totally still.

It raised the hairs at the back of Hank’s neck.

“So,” Connor said at last, “it’s impossible to know whether her obsession with Torrance was because of the drug or because of her condition.”

“Pretty much,” said Hank. “Probably why they never got a conviction.”  

Connor looked down at its feet briefly. “The man from the holding cell—he wasn’t ill?”

Hank didn’t answer right away. The bedroom suddenly felt too warm. Tickling beads of sweat broke out at his hairline and on his chest. “No,” he said at last. “Reckless, I guess.” He sniffed. “Stupid. But sane.”

Connor’s frown deepened for a second. Then it vanished, bringing back that weirdly perfect symmetry. “Is it possible he was compliant because—”

A gravelly bark sounded from the laundry nook. Heavy paws thumped onto metal.

“Sumo!” Hank called. “Come here.”

The dog padded out into the bedroom with his head hanging, looking guilty.

“Because?” Hank prompted, holding out a hand.

Connor scratched at that cleft chin. “Considering the effects of the drug…”

A cold nose bumped Hank’s fingers, followed by a warm tongue. The reek of dog breath made his stomach flip. “What? Spit it out.”

“Maybe he found you...pleasing to look at.”

At any other time, that would have earned a laugh: a big, fuck-off roar that would send people scuttling. But the comment hit him in the chest and clenched his whole body. The room felt hot and the air inside was thin, like the house had been picked up and planted halfway up a mountain.

Hank jabbed a finger at Connor. “Let me tell you something, buddy. The guy they sent in to soft-pedal the suspects? The charmer? That wasn’t _ever_ me. It was always—” He stopped with Luther’s name on the tip of his tongue. “I’m the gut-punch, okay? Just a big, ugly blunt instrument they drop in the cage when negotiation stalls out. That’s it.”

A tilt of Connor’s chin. “But you continued to follow Miss Tucker’s case.”

Hank brought his fist down on the meat of his thigh. “Well, I didn’t have far to go. She landed in some place downstate where they bolt down the furniture and take your shoelaces. Probably going to die there, too.”

“Yes,” Connor said.

“What the fuck do you know about it?”

“Only what you tell me, Hank.”

The tendrils of gray that had started to seep in at the corners of Hank’s vision spread a bit further. _God, but it was hot_. He pounded his chest with the heel of his hand and cleared his throat. The near-full bottle of whiskey beckoned from his dresser drawer. He reached out for purchase, fingers squealing over the foam, finding nothing to clutch.

“You’re not well,” said Connor. Again, not a question.

“I’m just fine.” Hank raised a hand toward it. “...Open a damn window or something.”

“I’ll get you a glass of water,” Connor said.

“I said I’m fine!” The cut inside his mouth sparked with pain. “Don’t treat me like an invalid. You’re not my nursemaid. You’re a...fucking tin can.” He shoved past Connor, through the doorway and into the relative coolness of the living room. It was hard not to cringe at the pathetic scene: the stained end table, the chair bent from his weight, crumbs, beer cans, the rug buckled like wrinkling skin. Woozy, he charged toward the door. His old canvas jacket hung next to it, the Tesla’s starter fob in one pocket.

A concerned _whuff_ from Sumo sounded behind him, too far away now to pay any mind. Hank heard Connor’s voice, too, as he tore his jacket off the hook and stepped out into frigid daylight. The sun was trying hard to break the cloud cover. He squinted, breathing in stinging air, and made a dash for the driveway.

“This is inadvisable,” Connor called. Then, more softly: “Hank.”

If he’d had more time to think about it, Hank might have wondered why the android remained at the front door with one hand half-raised instead of charging him and wrestling him down. Right then, he could convince himself he was too far and fast to catch, stomping the accelerator and sailing to freedom.

A mournful howl from the dog reached his ears. It trailed off and faded as he urged the car along Park Heights and turned it southward. Out of habit, he touched the shaved patch underneath his right ear, but his Dot must have still been on the bedside table. Hank took the streets in a zigzag pattern, which forced him not to zone out. Overhead, banks of clouds shifted and opened up gaps—wells of blue that looked too painted-on. Little splatters of sun marked the street on and off. They led him forward, but dried up before he passed through, over and over.

It took until his leg was shaking on the pedal to realize he hadn’t switched on the car’s heat. He sighed when it gushed out of the vents, smelling like burning leaves. With gas engines illegal now, the road smelled of whatever he passed.

He remembered some geezer about five years back who threw his whole savings into restoring a metallic purple 1975 Oldsmobile Cutlass. His plan was apparently to drive it all over the city like a parade float until he died, which was exactly what he did, kitted out in a stark white Afro and wraparound shades. He made up for the quiet new engine with a pair of infrasound woofers in the trunk and hydraulic lifts. Guy would bounce the damn thing around dawn to dusk, making people queasy with the subsonics, racking up citations from Traffic. Hank had to guess he’d finally croaked because the car had disappeared. Maybe his embarrassed kids sold it to a collector to pay off his mountain of fines.

His breath coming more easily now, and with fewer checks of the rear view, Hank could force his brain to point him somewhere. Food and booze were out; his stomach was too messed up. At this point in the day, the Gallery would be quiet and washed out, full of Magpies sleeping off last night’s high. He found himself swinging under the interstate by the vehicle impound lot and into Lexington. Before the Delaware Migration, the neighborhood had been crammed with rotted old row homes, just as hollowed-out and dangerous as the people in them.

You could see the old street on display boards staggered along the sidewalks. The rare visitor could tap the steel pad to see a little holo, or link up with their JawDots to hear a snippet of narration. Maybe they still worked. The gray-walled public housing cubes were falling into disrepair just like what they’d replaced, most of their smart functions offline.

One older place was still standing on Amity Street, closed off behind a plexi fence: the walk-up that Edgar Allan Poe had called home until he croaked. All Hank knew about Poe was he married his cousin when she was thirteen and he died totally broke. Served the disgusting bastard right, nineteenth century or not. The two hundred-year anniversary of his death was a little under a year away, and the city was already going crazy with plans.

Hank pulled up a little short of the monument. Lights were on inside, and quicksilver words scrolled across the wall—poems and quotes. At one point, the words broke apart and made the outline of a raven, flexing its wings.

It was tacky as hell.

The only thing not behind plexi was a bench made to look like old-timey iron. Hank knew it was a carbon fiber replica on a cement base because two other benches had been stolen. Inscribed on the top slat:

 

_Lord help my poor soul._

 

Supposedly his last words.

_You got that right, Eddie, old pal._

Hank poked the ignition button with his forefinger and steeled himself before opening the door to the cold. When he got out to put on his jacket, he felt frozen concrete under feet he hadn’t realized were bare.

Swearing, he slammed the door then picked his way over to the bench.

Rush hour was over, and even the noise of the nearby highway was muted. No birds, horns, or chatter came from the street. Head tipped back, Hank puffed clouds of vapor up into the air just to watch them disappear.

A couple of voices made him sit back up. A porch light outside one of the cubes across the street had snapped on and two people were talking: a man and a woman. Neither could have been older than twenty-five. The guy was wearing a gold baseball cap and the girl had a cluster of dark braids falling over the fur collar of her jacket.

They had noticed Hank sitting there and were pointing, exchanging words low and close. The old cop warning bells started pinging. They were looking longer and harder than they would at any other crazy old man.

“Hey,” the guy said, moving to the edge of the curb. It sounded casual, but his shoulders were up around his ears.

Hank tucked one foot under the bench, leverage if he needed to get up quick.

“You that cop,” he said.

“Not anymore, kid,” Hank told him.

The young woman charged into the middle of the street, pointing a finger, braids swinging. “You are. You that cop that shot Simon Brandt.”

“Fuck,” Hank muttered. His hand went to his hip, again finding no holster or gun. Good, because that would be the exact wrong thing to do at the moment. He raised his hands. “Got the wrong guy, sweetheart.”

“ _Sweetheart_?” Her eyes were wide with absolute affront.

That was a bad move, too. Hank cursed himself inwardly. “Just out for walk,” he said, keeping his voice calm and even. “I’m leaving now, okay?”

“Like hell you are,” the young woman said. She broke into a jog. “Murderer.”

Hank heaved himself off the bench and went for the car door. The woman had managed to grab his jacket sleeve and was yanking it. Seams popped.

He flung the door open, which had the effect of separating them and also pushing the woman away. She was petite and thin; the impact sent her stumbling.

Her companion swore and took off running. The sound of his shoes was heavy on the tarmac.

By the time Hank had closed the driver’s side door, something hit the passenger-side window with a crunch. It split in a starburst pattern but didn’t shatter, not yet. Hank could see the guy in the hat reflected over and over between the webbed cracks.

He had a baseball bat.

Hank pounded the lock button and shielded his face. “Sonofa _bitch_!”

Meanwhile, the woman had recovered and was pounding the driver-side window. He scooted closer to her as the opposite window exploded, scattering chunks of glass across the seat and center console.

“Come here, motherfucker!” the man shouted, knocking out any remaining glass from the frame with the end of the bat. It was made of wood—old, but with _Orioles_ still visible in orange and black script.

Hank was trying to get to the ignition button.

Out went the bat, in came the guy’s arm. He managed to get his fingers around Hank’s wrist, but had no leverage.

Hank twisted out of his grip, bouncing back against the door. Hopefully, the girl wasn’t strong enough to break the glass. He wished to God he’d taken the Sig, but it was too much of a risk pulling it out with Connor around. Hopefully, the damn thing didn’t snoop.

With as much wind-up as he could manage, Hank punched the guy’s forearm. It went still, and for a second he thought he’d hit a nerve out of some miracle. Then Hank caught crazy movement in his periphery. The woman wasn’t banging on the window anymore; instead, she was flying, arms and legs going wild and a look of shock on her face.

He gaped as she hit the plexi, slid, and pitched forward into the grass.

Then the man’s arm disappeared. Only a chin and slack mouth showed through the busted window as the guy’s forehead was slammed against the car hard enough to shake it. Something bounced and skittered into the seat. Hank hoped to Christ it wasn’t a tooth.

He swayed for a second, then dropped to the concrete like his bones were gone. A shadow remained, cutting off the weak glow from the porch lamp.

Connor’s face appeared in the window frame, not a hair on its head out of place. “We should leave before they recover.” Quick and brusque, he opened the door, pausing long enough to sweep much of the glass into the footwell. It crunched as he stepped into it.

Still mute with shock, Hank floored it as soon as the door shut. Cold air whipped around the car’s interior, making his ears go wonky and blowing his hair into his eyes. Connor’s hair was slicked down pretty well, but a few strands had broken loose in the wind, fluttering over his forehead and ears.

Hank wondered whether it was fake or if they used human hair like some of the wig places. The thought of CyberLife buying the hair off some lady in India would have been funny under other circumstances.

He eased back a little on the accelerator. “How did you find me?” Now that they were out of danger, paranoia was getting its knobby hand around his throat. “I left my Dot at home.”

Without looking over, Connor said, “There is a tracking device on your vehicle. I’m able to access several weeks of data, which means it was placed before we—before the program began.”

Hank pounded the wheel and swore. “Stupid-ass rookie mistake. Never trust new tech when old tech will do.” Another strike with the heel of his hand. He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a minute, then asked, “Do you know where the tracker is?”

Connor was silent for a while.

Hank watched its jaw flex under the synthetic skin.

“I can’t remove the device,” it finally told him.

Hank sniffed. “Of course not.”

Another pause. “But I can replicate a portion of the transmission stream and overwrite extant data.”

“In English?”

At last, Connor turned his head. “I can make it look like you never left your house this morning.”

Hank managed to catch himself before he stomped the brake. “Why?”

“You didn’t break any laws. You were in danger, but you didn’t incite the violence. Those humans might have seriously injured you. Or worse.”

“Well,” said Hank, “good to know you don’t think I _incited it_.” He was confused more than anything; he hadn’t exactly been hospitable. Why would it cut him a break out of nowhere?

“There may still be closed circuit footage of the incident,” Connor said. “I have no control over that.”

Prying one stiff hand from the wheel, Hank waved the statement off. “No, no. I get it. You, uh, did what you could.”

“You’re welcome, Hank.”

His words hadn’t even been close to a _thank you_ , but Hank wasn’t going to press the issue. For a few minutes, the car was silent except for the hiss of wind that curled through, turning Hank’s ears and hands red with chill. He shivered and hunkered down into the seat. Chancing a look over, he saw Connor picking at something in the heel of its hand. As Hank watched, Connor extracted a sliver of window glass and held it up for inspection. The tiny, curved shard glinted blue in the growing light. A thin trail of blue fluid that had branched into creases and furrows in Connor’s palm. The android swabbed it away with his thumb, then examined it briefly before wiping it on its pants leg.

Driving past Chicken Feed, the rich smell of the grill wafted in the broken window. But Hank had no inclination to stop this time, even though adrenaline had left him shaky and starving.

“There is very little food in the house,” Connor said.

Well, at least Hank knew it could smell.

“May I suggest stopping for supplies?” said Connor. “Perhaps some fresh vegetables.”

Hank barked a brittle laugh, vapor puffing from his lips. “I haven’t eaten anything didn’t come out of a can in ten years. And even opening cans is a pain in the ass.”

“My uplink gives me access to millions of recipes,” Connor said. Its tone was light, like a comment on the weather.

That bought another laugh. “Yeah? You gonna make me a steak?”

“If you’d like.”

This time, Hank did hit the brake. He rocked forward in his seat. “You’re shitting me.”

Connor didn’t move. “Not at all. A moderately sized portion of beef accompanied by, let’s say, grilled asparagus, would be a sensible meal choice.”

Hank grimaced. “Hell, no. I hate asparagus.”

“French beans, then.”

 _The absolute nerve._ “Fine. And medium rare.”

Connor nodded, hands palm-down on its knees in that prim way he had. “You’ll have to make the purchases. I have no credit.”

Instead of rattling off a snide crack along the lines of: _You sure as hell don’t_ , Hank only shook his head and turned the Tesla toward Shop Rite.

An hour later, the rich aroma of searing beef filled the house. Hank’s frozen feet were crammed into slippers and tingling as they warmed up. There was no permanent damage, but the next hot shower would hurt like a bastard. His mouth was watering like crazy. He had nothing on Sumo, though, who stood next to Connor’s leg at the stove, dumping flumes of frothy spit onto the lino. His whining could be heard over the sizzle from the pan.

Casually, Connor picked up the steak and peeled away a morsel. Hot fat shone on its white fingertips. He dangled the tidbit for a half-second then dropped it into Sumo’s waiting maw.

“Hey,” Hank said. “Wash your hands before you touch my food, huh?”

Without turning, Connor announced, “My skin is engineered to be microbe-resistant. In fact, if I handle the meat, I am able to gauge if it is cooked thoroughly enough to eliminate parasites or bacterial pathogens.” It promptly poked a finger right into the center of the steak.

Hank shook his head. “‘Handle the meat.’ Jesus wept.” He swallowed back a mouthful of eager saliva. “So you don’t feel that?”

“I can choose to take my sensory receptors on- or offline. My skin is self-repairing to a degree, but what you call ‘pain’ can serve as a warning before severe damage to the unit occurs.”  

The chair creaked a warning as Hank sat back. “So I could punch you in the face, and without your sensory whatevers, you wouldn’t feel a thing?”

At that point, Connor turned, wearing a calm, neutral expression. “I have a reinforced carbon fiber skeleton. It’s possible that a strong impact could dislodge one of my visual cortices or sever one of the nylon biocomposite facial muscles.” He raised an eyebrow. “But it would take much more than a human fist to inflict damage. In all likelihood, you would injure yourself instead.”

If Hank wasn’t mistaken, a corner of its mouth had quirked up before it turned back to the stovetop. “Fuckin’ gear box,” he said, under his breath.

“If I can say so,” Connor began, picking up one of Hank’s battered plates and sliding the steak onto it. He plucked the beans from their shimmering bath of garlic butter and placed them beside the meat, then said, “I would greatly appreciate it if you did not punch me in the face.”

Hank took the offered plate. The smell was heavenly; it made his head spin.

Connor whisked a knife from the dusty knife block and offered it over handle-first, a strange little smile on its face. “ _Bon appétit._ ”

And oh, did Hank want to find something to gripe about, a little divot to fill in with resentment. But the meal was a flat-out wonder. Even though he could only afford lab-grown, the filet had a perfect crust of char, and the pink middle spilled juice when he cut. Even the beans were crisp and not bitter.

He went through it all like a buzzsaw.

“All right,” he said when the plate was clear, “did they build you for restaurant work?”

Even that backhanded flattery made Connor smile—a wide one, natural, all full of those fence-picket teeth. Hank was pretty sure he hadn’t seen it before. It seemed to change the whole shape of the android’s face. It would be disarming to anyone but a cop. And it would probably drop panties left and right. Well, if it belonged to person.

“You enjoyed it?” Connor asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad,” it said. “So did Sumo.” On hearing his name, the dog raised his head and gave Hank an expectant look.

He hesitated, then set the plate down on the floor to the sloppy sounds of canine enjoyment.

“In answer to your question,” Connor said, “I believe I was created for this program.”

Hank squinted. “You _believe_?”

A nod. The smile faltered a little. “I have no observational data prior to coming online for this assignment. I was given access to a comprehensive history of the CyberLife Corporation and the city of Baltimore, including visual data streams recorded by other models. But I didn’t experience them directly.”

“If you can see what another android saw, how do you tell the difference between your memories and theirs?” Hank asked.

Connor frowned. “It’s hard to explain. Functionally, there is no difference. I’m able to access anything transmitted from another android’s sensory matrix to its central processor, and therefore the data feed. It’s largely audiovisual, but I can experience chemical analysis and even tactile information, if available.”

The words were slow to sink in, and it wasn’t just the effect of a big meal. All of it seemed foreign, unsteady, much more the realm of some tweed-jacketed pencil-neck in a anything Hank had ever cared to dip his toe into. And invasive, too. He’d had enough trouble with the annual psych eval, largely because it was nothing but stupid questions to which he had served up far-out, bullshit answers. God only knew what the department’s resident shrink had in his file. Not that it mattered now.

“So if some android bites the dust, you not only watch it die, it’s like _you’re_ dying, too?” Hank asked.

“Androids cannot die,” Connor said. “Not the way humans do. If a model is is...decommissioned, its consciousness is uploaded to the larger stream. It continues to exist within the collective.” He paused. “But if you’re asking me whether I have accessed any terminal sensory data before a decommission, the answer is no.”

All the stuff about “consciousness upload” and “the collective” made Hank uneasy, but it would be a hell of a trick if he could just shuffle some of the shit he’d seen to a place where he didn’t have to look at it. Or at least if it could only come up when he wanted it to. He’d tried, for sure—even back in the academy they were telling recruits they had to find a way not to make the job personal, because the job meant prying open a clamshell full of human depravity that civilians step right over. Guys on the squad talked about boxes—putting this, that, or the other case in a box and closing it up.

Well, that was one of the drawbacks to having wet meat in your head instead of wires and circuits: the boxes leak. And what’s inside shows up whenever it wants to, not just on the street or in your dark bedroom alone, but when you’re eating and showering and fucking, too.

Hank’s fingertips started to itch and his gut was restless. He’d be mighty pissed off if the steak decided at some point that night to come back for an encore. “Why not?” he asked.

“It would serve no purpose in my assignment.” Connor wasn’t cagey, he just seemed baffled by the concept. “For instance, I reviewed the material pertaining to your case. But there were no androids involved in either the confrontation in which Detective Freeman was killed, or the death of Simon Brandt. Should the need arise, I will access any records that will help me fulfill mission objectives.”

“And you can do that with any android? Any one in the world?”

Connor stopped for two or three seconds, stuck in what looked like the middle of a thought but not moving at all. Then it looked away, toward the door to the living room, and back.

With that and the face and the processor, it would demolish at cards. If androids played, no human would ever win a poker game again. Maybe that was true for a lot of things.

Sumo padded up with a grunt and rested his chin on Hank’s forearm.

“Only those connected to the CyberLife data stream,” Connor said at last.

Hank nodded, relaxing a little. “It’s okay,” he said. “Baltimore PD has heard about deviance, even if it’s just an urban legend.”

Connor nodded. “It has been posited, but never observed. But in a hypothetical case, I could only interface with a deviant android directly.”

“I guess anyone—any _thing_ —can go off the grid,” Hank said. He shrugged. “But, then again, it’s not really my area. What ‘deviant’ means for humans is a whole different ball game.”

Another nod. “CyberLife has not studied the effects of cutting off an android from the data stream,” Connor said. “Our founder, Elijah Kamski, has theorized that it would result in total system collapse within a few hours. He also believes it’s possible that any data in a deviant processor might become too decayed to salvage.”

“Real death,” Hank said.

“As close to it as possible.”

“You ever met Kamski?” Hank asked.

Its lips compressed into a tight line, Connor shook its head. “I have scanned the files on Doctor Kamski, but we have never interacted.”

Hank sniffed. “Be fucking weird to meet your maker. To know that he actually exists.”

“You are referring to human religious traditions?” Connor asked.

“Guess so,” said Hank. “To be honest, I never really gave it much thought.”

Leaning in, Connor steepled his long fingers under his chin. “What do you believe created humans?”

Hank frowned. “I don’t know. Nothing? Bunch of atoms smashing together?” He scratched his beard. It _really_ needed a trim. “Way I see it, it doesn’t matter much. We’re here. Screwing each other over. It’s been that way since the dawn of time. We just keep inventing better ways to do it.”

Connor appeared to think again. “Humans also invent ways to help each other. Doctor Kamski believes androids—”

“Your Doctor Kamski is a person like any other person. He might be smarter, but in every other way he’s just the same. Believe me, humans only do things because they’re selfish. Even the bleeding hearts. They help other people because it makes _them_ feel righteous. Like they’re better than the next guy. So this Kamski, maybe he says he made you because he wanted to help humanity. Move us along, I don’t know. But the winners get to write history. He can make himself look like the Dalai fucking Lama, but deep down he wants the same things everybody does: power, money.” Hank threw up his hands. “For all we know, you exist because the Good Doc got struck out so many times scouting pussy he had to make his own.”

Looking confused, Connor said, “I don’t have—”

Hank waved him off. “It’s the principle. That’s why I can just about guarantee you that Kamski has tried to make a deviant, even if nobody knows.”

“All androids link to the CyberLife data feed when they are brought online.” If anything, Connor seemed more lost.

“He’s the guy who made them. He can make one different, right?”

“Possibly. But it still would not be an adequate demonstration of deviance in a formerly uplinked android. The data would be useless.”

Hank pointed a finger. “Yeah, well, for all you know, when one goes off the feed, it just looks like—what’d you call it?— _decommission_.”

Connor looked stricken.

Hank almost felt bad. “The sooner you learn this, the better: pretty much every human is a piece of shit. Some are just better at covering it up.” He pushed his chair away from the table, then stood and stretched his spine until it crackled. He picked up the plate and tossed it, clattering, into the sink. At some point, Connor had washed the beat-up frying pans, and they sat drying on a grubby towel next to a stack of pizza boxes. Hank shoved down the shame that threatened to rise again. He didn’t need it tonight.

“You asked how I can tell if an experience belongs to me or to someone else,” Connor piped up as Hank headed into the living room.

“Yeah.” He was tired and his brain felt stretched out like an old t-shirt.

“Multiple sensory inputs at once tend to create a pattern,” said Connor. “Some android models may be identical in construction, but each is its own entity, too. As experiences diverge, so do the patterns. They become identifiable by the combination unique to one body.” He looked at his hands, briefly. “Like a fingerprint.”

“Or a personality,” Hank said.

Connor shrugged. “Something like that.”

Any leftover buzz from the scuffle in Lexington had bled out, leaving Hank feeling as he settled in the recliner like the whole day had just been a shuffle from chair to chair. Not that there hadn’t been days like that on the force, hunched over at the console and reviewing files until his eyes burned. He wondered what, exactly, Connor meant by “scanning” information. It said it could see the visual stuff, but did it read words in a report or did the everything just pop into its processing... _thing_? If he read crazy-fast, maybe there wasn’t even a difference. It hurt Hank’s brain: too many things walking around trying to be other things. Maybe too many succeeding.

He reached over to the panel, but there was really nothing he could think of wanting to stream right then. It was all garbage: just people pretending, too.

From the kitchen came the shush of the tap and soft clinking. Connor was washing his plate and utensils.

Hank had half a mind to tell it to quit, but he gnawed his cheek instead and shifted with an undignified grunt to reach his back pocket. The battered flex was his own; of course they’d taken the department-issue device. Not that it had been much better. Budget for the PD was a sad fraction of the city’s total.

Hank’s iFlex was a Generation Two. Apple had just dropped the Four. It could apparently fold out to seventeen inches with a virtual keyboard, but Hank wouldn’t be upgrading. The half-pension was barely enough for Sumo to live on.

He gave a thought to using the console, but he didn’t want Connor looking over his shoulder. Squinting at the mobile-mode display didn’t cut it, either. He unfolded it to tablet size and sat, wondering where to start.

A couple of pokes at the screen and he was looking at the Order of Remand for Olivia Tucker to the state mental health system. It looked just the same as it had fourteen years ago and told him nothing. Frowning, Hank swiped out and checked Drug Court records. That and welfare benefits both turned up zilch.

Vital Records wasn’t where he wanted to go, but it was where he ended. And where Olivia had, too. Hank read the form’s title three times before it registered. Her death certificate was dated 2036, less than two years after she was admitted to the hospital. Hank’s chest tightened. He swallowed against a wave of nausea. Cause of death was hypoxia. It was a term Hank had heard but couldn’t place. He did recognize _suffocation_.

Medical examiner had ruled self-inflicted. There was an autopsy report, but Hank didn’t want to read it. People in lockup without belts or plastic bags could stuff pillows or even their clothes down their throats if they wanted out bad enough. He’d seen it—or, rather, had seen the result. There would be fibers in her airway, burst blood vessels in her eyes. Maybe she’d sat or lain on her hands because she knew she’d try to stop herself when her oxygen-starved brain hit panic mode.

Hank slammed the flex down on the side table. “Fuck!” He couldn’t manage any more words, because the nausea came back hard. The chair nearly tipped over as he half-rolled out of it, thumping on the boards. He barely made the bathroom before everything came up. It was nothing but sour bile by the end.

Sweating and panting, one hand still on the toilet bowl, he heard a sharp series of knocks on the bedroom door frame.

“I’m alerting emergency services,” Connor called.

“Don’t!” Hank’s roar echoed off the grubby tile.

“Are you sure?”

“Shit, you stupid toaster,” Hank said. “Haven’t you ever…?” He trailed off. The effort of shouting made his guts clench even though he had nothing left to bring up.

Connor—damn its fucking _mission_ and _directives_ —appeared at the bathroom door with a spot-on imitation of concern on its face.

It made Hank almost blind with rage, but he could only flop a weak hand in the android’s direction. “Don’t you know when to piss off?”

“Can I help?” it asked.

He raised his head and gestured toward the pitiful remains of the steak dinner, putting on a fake cheery tone. “Yeah, actually. Care to flush?”

The machine actually took a step into the room before Hank took a swipe at its leg, putting himself off balance. “Not really, you idiot!”

“Something’s upset you.”

Hank coughed, gagged a little. He dragged the back of his hand across his lips. “You don’t say.”

“I understand sarcasm.” Connor sounded chastened.

That wasn’t enough to make Hank hold his tongue, though. “Well, that can be first and only on the list of ‘Things Connor Understands.’” He turned and slapped the flush button, watching with regret as scraps of the best meal he’d had in years got sucked neatly away.

“I didn’t mean to offend you, Hank.”

From the floor, Hank gave a derisive huff. “Did you know?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

Hank was trying to hold onto the fury, if only because it felt vital, felt like it could stop from going completely to seed. But he was drained now—dog tired but still sure he wouldn’t sleep that night, which made it worse. “Olivia Tucker,” he said. “Did you know she was dead?” When he glanced up, the android was looking at its feet. That was answer enough.

“Your tone and phrasing when you spoke about Miss Tucker suggested her case was significant to you. I inferred that there might be some lingering emotional connection.” Connor paused. The soft-booted feet shuffled slightly. “I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Well,” Hank said, weary, “I’ve got great news for you. You don’t have to worry about what does or doesn’t upset me. I’m a big boy.” Hank shifted to sit against the far wall of the bathroom. Paint flakes drifted to the floor and onto his shoulders. His bones felt like bars of lead. “You ‘complete your mission,’ or whatever. If I’m gonna color the wall with my brains, I’ll at least give you the courtesy of doing it after you’re gone.” He sniffed. “Now get the fuck out. The only thing I’m in danger of doing tonight is going to sleep.”

Connor’s hesitation told Hank that there was more it wanted to say. But after a handful of seconds, it turned and walked soundlessly out.

When he heard Sumo’s nails clicking on the kitchen lino and the front door opening, Hank got up and shut the bedroom door. He went right for the bottle of whiskey, unscrewing the sticky top and tossing back two or three mouthfuls. When the liquor hit his empty stomach, though, it was like he’d swallowed molten slag iron. He put the bottle down as carefully as he could; it was better to yak on the floor than waste good booze. Turned out making it to the sink was good enough.

Connor didn’t knock again.

Hank collapsed onto his bare mattress. Its cheap, quilted fabric scratched against his exposed neck and forearms. He’d left the flex in the living room, but he wasn’t about to damage his pride by scurrying out to get it. Briefly, he considered rubbing one out to pass the time. It seemed way too weird; he probably wouldn’t even be able to get it up knowing the machine was sitting just outside. Giving up, Hank crossed his arms over his chest, closed his eyes, and tried to keep the things in his head inside their boxes.

He failed, but sometime closer to dawn than midnight, he finally slept.

Scratching and whining at the closed door woke him up. It had to be mid-morning, because the light flooding the room was starting to turn from gold to white. Hank squinted, not quite ready to believe the clouds had eased off. Not that he was a sun worshiper or anything: summer in Baltimore got the highest number of clear days but was also the most miserable season. From early May through half of September, Hank was a mess of sweat, his underarms, chest, and back going damp almost the minute he stepped outside. His thirty or so extra pounds didn’t help. By some miracle, the temperature in the room that morning was damn near perfect.

Sumo voiced a yip—something he rarely did—and thunked one heavy paw against the door, making it rattle in its frame.

“Yeah, yeah,” Hank grumbled, though it was fond. He rolled off the mattress, a few joints snapping with a popcorn sound. A quick sniff of the armpits told him he wasn’t overly offensive, at least not to a human nose. Maybe Connor could turn his sense of smell off...

On opening the door, just under two hundred pounds of eager Saint Bernard slammed into Hank’s belly. His laugh came out in a whoosh of air. “Whoa, buddy. You get some coffee with your chow this morning?”

Heavy paws stomped Hank’s bare feet, and his hand was coated in slobber after a couple seconds. He considered the possibility that Sumo was antsy because he hadn’t been fed yet. There was no reason for Connor to do so, especially after the earful Hank had given it last night.

He pushed the panting, leaping furball away and walked into the living room. All the empties had vanished from the floor and the rug was smoothed straight. In the kitchen, there was not a single pizza box. Instead, there was fresh water in the dog’s bowl and—wonder of wonders—a carton of real eggs on the counter, set next to one of the frying pans and a stick of butter softening on a plate.

No android.

Hank was actually relieved. As he was checking the levels in the coffee maker, the front door opened, making him flinch a little. He looked over.

Connor stood by the threshold, head bowed a little, doing the choir boy hand-clasping thing. “Good morning,” it said softly.

“Hey,” Hank said. He shut the grounds compartment lid and pressed the brew button.

Tendrils of cold air reached in as Connor shut the door. “The municipal ‘link site indicated that waste and recycling is collected today.”

Hank tried to clear his throat, which was tight and sticky. “You didn’t have to do this. You’re not my housekeeper.”

“I know,” it said.

An inviting smell filtered into the air as the the coffee machine spat and hissed. “Well,” Hank said, “place looks better than it has for a while.” He coughed again and went to the cupboard for a mug. The closest was the one that had been on his desk at headquarters for at least fifteen years: white ceramic with _DON’T TALK TO ME_ printed in black. He had never once washed the thing.

It was a hell of a shock looking inside and finding the grayish stains scrubbed away. “Damn…”

Connor took a few steps into the kitchen proper. “Do you like eggs? I didn’t know.”

It was surreal; Hank was having uncomfortable flashbacks to his first year out of academy and a conversation the morning after he’d walked in on one of the guys he was living with giving it to a girl they’d just busted for solicitation. Damn, that had been 2018—almost ten years before Maryland had legalized sex work. Hank had been twenty-two—tall but still lanky no matter how much time he spent in the weight room. Five years afterward, he’d finally filled out to fit his shoulders, and at least a few people thought he was acceptable enough to fuck. There was some comfort in knowing that these days they were probably all fat and gray, too.

“Yeah, I like eggs,” he said.

Sumo licked his chops and rammed Hank’s leg affectionately, smearing drool on his thigh.

Hank had to smile. “This dumb mutt does, too.”

Connor mirrored the smile, but cautiously. “I believe he was concerned about you.”

Hank studied its face, not a hundred percent sure it was talking about the dog, and _that_ was weird, too. He looked away and ruffled the thick fur on Sumo’s head. The dog’s ears flopped and he grunted with pleasure. “Somehow, he’s stupid enough to like me,” said Hank. “Poor bastard.”

Connor didn’t respond. As the coffee cycle finished, though, it stepped over to the stovetop and went to work.

Against his better judgment, Hank gorged himself on six eggs so perfectly sunny-side-up that they could have come out of an ad. The rest of the carton was scrambled and dumped, still steaming, in Sumo’s bowl.

Hank got a belly laugh watching the dog dive right in, only to come up flipping his tongue and biting at air when it turned out too hot. Bits of egg flew everywhere, some sticking on the nearby cabinet.

Connor was smiling, too. As far as Hank could remember, he’d only laughed the once. He caught it snagging a grubby dish towel and heading toward the dog bowl, above which Sumo was licking his chops, presumably to wipe up the egg spatters.

Hank reached out and placed his hand against Connor’s wrist, a little wary of grabbing. The android had tossed a girl about half a block. She’d been small, but still. “Nah, leave it,” he said. “He’ll take your hand off.” Hank pulled his own back. “Uh, I mean, ‘do some severe damage to the unit.’”

Connor paused for a moment or two. Then, seemingly just to make Hank do a double take, he threw back his head and laughed—a clear and painfully _young_ sound. “You’re catching on to android terminology,” he said.

Hank shrugged, patting his full belly. “Yeah, well, my ‘processor’ ain’t as fast as yours. But it does okay.” Shifting in the chair was uncomfortable. He was definitely going to have to ease off the food, especially if he wasn’t moving as much. Over the clean sink, the half-dead tree by the window was backed by a swatch of blue. The light still trickling in gave Hank an idea.

Before heading back to the bedroom to grab a sweatshirt, though, he carried his plate and fork to the sink, grabbing the pan from the stove on his way. The half-assed washing he gave them probably wouldn’t cut the mustard with Connor’s standards, but the android merely watched him shake off droplets of water and pile it all by the sink.

He pulled on an older shirt that was a little tight around the middle. It was going to get sweaty, anyway. After thinking twice about it, he ran the clippers over his beard and mustache, too.

Connor watched him put on his battered sneakers without comment.

Hank grabbed his jacket and Sumo’s leash from beside the door, making the dog leap with excitement. “Gonna take this big lug for a walk,” he said. Then to Connor: “I guess you’re coming?”

He got a nod and a slight smile in return.

In Druid Hill Park, most of the trees were bare or nearly so. From late September, the seven hundred or so acres exploded into a patchwork of yellow and red. But October had been dismal, and Hank wasn’t even talking about his mood, which just happened to match the days on days of dirty-looking skies and steady rain.

But today, even though most of the leaves lay brown and shriveled on the grass, the piles were crunchy enough to sound like a hurricane when Hank let Sumo off the leash to plow through them, one after another. He ambled along, absently tapping the metal clip on the end of the leash against his thigh and watching some late birds yell and chase each other.

Connor kept pace, hands behind its back, watching.

Along the path lining the reservoir, they passed a couple of guys jogging. They were kitted out in matchy-matchy gear, but one was red-faced and struggling while the other hadn’t broken a sweat.

Hank shot a look over to Sumo, who was sniffing the base of a gnarled cherry tree. Some people bitched about roaming dogs, and technically it was against city ordinance. If Connor had looked the leash laws up—or accessed or downloaded or what-the-fuck-ever—it hadn’t said a thing.

In any case, the runners were concentrating too hard to notice. Hank chuckled, looking over his shoulder as they went. “Man, I bet this is the last time he goes running with that guy. I’d have quit and gotten a beer by now.”

Connor didn’t look back. “He might have instructed it to keep a certain pace.”

“Oh, shit.” Hank turned, walking a few steps backwards. “That’s an android?”

“Yes. I’ve seen the model in the CyberLife inventory.”

Hank shook his head. “Well, that makes sense.” It would explain the pricey wardrobe—guy like that would have to be loaded to be running around with his personal robot while all the wage slaves were marking time. As far as Connor went, it didn’t really answer to Hank. And he was sure as hell not going to ask it to take him running any time soon. “That bother you? That androids get ‘instructed’ to do things?” he asked.

“No,” Connor said in a level voice. “We were created to serve a function.”

Hank saw him look over out of the corner of his eye.

“Besides,” it went on, “Humans are also given instructions. And you serve functions, though you are usually able to choose what they are.”

Hank scowled. “That’d piss me off, somebody telling me I could only do one thing.” The fact that he had expected to be a cop right up until they put him in the ground he decided not to mention.

“You wouldn’t know differently,” Connor said, then added, “if you were an android.”

“I don’t buy that. You know different because you see people do it. That doesn’t make you mad? You think that other one is happy being a glorified stopwatch?”

Connor shook his head. “If it’s able to perform the task, there is no reason not to do it. You’re thinking about it from a human’s perspective, Hank. Neither ‘happy’ nor ‘mad’ figure into our considerations.”

“So you have to do everything someone tells you?” Hank asked. “Fuck that.”

It smiled briefly. “No. Every sentient being can choose. For example, we have imperatives for self-preservation written into our programming. Instructing the android to come running is not the same as instructing it to walk off a building. It’s a matter of logic, weighing possible outcomes and reactions.”

Hank huffed. “I couldn’t take being ordered around.” He turned and pointed a finger at Connor, not entirely sure how serious he should be. “Say anything about my personnel files and I’ll leave your plastic ass here.”

“I didn’t plan to say anything,” it told him. “But you do make a persuasive case for an android examining its _desire_ to perform a task. It might have reacted differently to running if it had engaged its emotional response subroutines.”

Hank stumbled, righted himself, and stopped dead. “Its _what now_?”

Connor stopped walking, too, looking puzzled. “CyberLife has equipped its second-generation and newer models with a spectrum of emotional response. We don’t typically engage it, because it can slow down logical decision-making.”

Hank felt slightly dizzy. It brought back flashes of the night before and he didn’t like it at all. “So that other...android...if it didn’t want to go, it could have just decked that guy and walked off?”

The way Connor flinched back and frowned, Hank would have thought he’d insulted its mother. Or Kamski the Exalted. “That would be a choice, but a remote one. A self-inventory would have indicated that it was able to perform the task. And the consequences might be less desirable if it chose not to do so. It’s similar to the thought process you might have used in deciding not to ‘deck’ your superiors.”

“That just doesn’t seem safe,” Hank said, scowling. He paused to shout for Sumo, who had wandered over the crest of the hill toward the conservatory. A light wind had come up, but it was chopping up the reservoir water and setting up a chilly rattle through the cherry trees’ remaining leaves. “You’ve got this freaky strong machine that can up and decide to start feeling one way or another about you. If you look at it the wrong way, you could end up with your head ripped off.”

“I can assure you, emotional response doesn’t interfere with the imperative to protect humans, either.”

“How the hell do you know?” Hank asked. “You ever switched it on?”

Connor paused. “No. But—”

Hank waved him off. “Yeah, let me guess. You saw it in your sense memory thing.”

Another pause. “Yes.”

Sumo was trotting toward them, dry leaves hanging off his shaggy coat. Hank hadn’t exactly been gracious since Connor was assigned. If it had decided to play around with feelings, he might be lying bleeding next to his car down in Lexington instead of walking off a good breakfast. He looked back.

Connor was standing straight, hands at its sides, its face unreadable.

“Come on, boy,” Hank said, fumbling with Sumo’s lead while still looking at the android. “We’re going home.”  



	4. Interlude: November 2046

Luther’s home was a real home, not like Hank’s. His place was basically somewhere to sleep, drink, sit on the can, shower. Yeah, he’d bought it, filled it with furniture—but it always seemed like he was haunting it instead of living there. Everything from dishes to towels to the bed felt borrowed, waiting for its owners to come back and boot him out on the curb.

His partner’s house had “décor,” which was not just the stuff you used but things that didn’t seem to have any purpose: flameless candles, vases of flowers and bowls of colored plexi beads, a wall-mounted touch-screen wedding album in a gold frame. It felt _crowded_.

They had more than one set of dishes, for Christ’s sake: one for everyday and then, Hank guessed, a better one for special occasions. Kara had told him at some point that Luther had actively helped in decorating, voting on this or that fabric, this or that color of paint.

It was so far away from Hank’s experience that she might as well have told him Luther knitted the bed blanket, too. The walls in Hank’s house were bare, the same color as they were when he bought the place. It had never once occurred to him to change it.

Maybe that was because of the endless parade of apartments Hank and his mother had cycled through when he was young. They had dragged the same set of beat-up old furniture from one place to another in the back of the pickup truck that Hank’s dad would drive when he was home on leave. Always the same pattern, too: sign a year’s lease, don’t mess up anything inside so they could keep the security deposit, then bust loose for another place where they could lock in a decent rate.

Hank had pestered his mom for a dog over the course of a couple years, getting a _Hell, no_ every time until the last, when she’d pressed his dad into driving the point home with a _Quit bothering your mother_ and a slap upside the head. After that, his only focus was keeping his grades good enough to graduate high school and get out.

When he’d finished walking the boards, Hank had dunked the paper copy of his diploma in the trash, then signed up at the academy the next day. He had packed his duffel that night, planning to couch-surf until training started. The last time he saw his mother, in 2013, she was drifting on Cloud Xanax and smoking on the porch. She’d given him a kiss on the cheek, reeking of menthols, and told him to _be good_. Out on the street, waiting for his friend’s car, he’d scrubbed that cheek red with his sleeve.

There were new things showing up all the time at Luther and Kara’s place. Since the last time Hank had been over, they’d bought a bunch of weird furniture and devices. Some of it was put together, some was still in the box: an interactive cam system, blankets no bigger than an unfolded flex, a whole bunch of plastic things in bright colors.

Over the turkey pot pie that Kara had made with the leftovers from the Thanksgiving bird, they toasted with sparkling apple cider. He wasn’t a big drinker anyway, but Luther swore to give up alcohol for the remaining eight months (and a week!) in solidarity with his wife. Kara teased him about nights out with the boys and about the taste of non-alcoholic beer, but it was clear she appreciated it.

Hank, who sipped the horrible cider and smiled, was looking forward to chasing the night’s dinner with a few highballs. He had most of a bottle of Wild Turkey, which was about as far into the holiday spirit as he got.

The whole time, Kara kept resting her free hand on her belly, even though she wasn’t showing at all. Everybody, or at least Kara’s mother and sister, apparently agreed she was going to get huge.

“They say you always do with the first one,” she said.

Hank was dubious.

In terms of size, Kara didn’t have much free real estate to work with. Both Hank and her husband towered over her. Hank wondered sometimes if she’d been intimidated at first—with his height and bulk, the power in his huge arms. She certainly wasn’t intimidated then.

Luther was one hell of a tough cop; Hank had seen him kneecap a guy and then question him between screams. But he would sooner set himself on fire than hurt the woman he’d married, and Kara knew it.

Hank had come to realize she wasn’t easily rattled, either.   

They might look mismatched at first glance. But they were incredible together—like the laughing couples in ads for furniture or wine, only for real. Throw in a perfect little curly-haired kid and _boom_ —you’ve got your American Family.

They were going to spoil the hell out of that rugrat, too. Hank was pretty sure he’d never wanted anything in his life half as much as Luther and Kara wanted that baby. It was going to be tiny, living proof that they’d made it. That the job, the hours, her worry and loneliness, the awful things he saw every day—none of it had gotten in and put a wedge between them.

It was a shiny fucking pipe dream, not that Hank would ever say it out loud. Instead, he drank the cider, cleaned his plate, and tried not to think about all the guys on the squad getting gouged for child support for kids they never saw. Hope was pretty, but it never seemed to catch on that reality played dirty.

Then again, like Hank, most detectives never had the mindset. _Romantic_ , it might have been, although that sounded pretty cheap. It was a rare cop indeed who sprang out of a mom-and-pop household—the kind with family dinners and soccer matches. The Boy Scouts, the student body presidents, the bright-eyed volunteers who cleaned up data records for the PD: they all went to college and ended up doctors or something. Investment bankers if they were jerks.

Police work was for kids who wanted their chance to beat instead of getting beaten, to wreck their own livers with booze after watching Mommy or Daddy do it.

Luther was the exception, not the rule. So maybe he could make it. _Maybe_.

“You got a name yet?” Hank asked.

Kara and Luther looked at each other.

Luther shrugged. “Sort of.”

“If it’s a girl, then Alice,” Kara said. “I _think_ we agree on that. Boys are harder.”

“My grandfather’s name was Tennyson,” said Luther.

Hank laughed, slapping his chest. “Seriously? That’s terrible.”

“That’s what I said!” Kara cut in.

Luther looked over at her, pretending much more hurt than he felt. “Tennyson was a poet.”

“What your kid’s gonna be is a _target_ ,” said Hank.

“I like Joseph,” Kara said. “Or Jason. Or Jesse.”

Luther pulled a face. “Jesse Freeman sounds like an illiterate sharecropper.”

She faked shock, playfully slugging his shoulder. “That’s a horrible thing to say about your child!”

“My child, who is half black,” Luther countered. “Who is going to read at the age of four, and not just _Pat the Bunny_.’”

“Richard Wright?” Kara asked. “Zora Neale Hurston?”

Luther narrowed his eyes and put on a wicked smile. “ _Tennyson_.”

They both broke up laughing. Luther seized her hand and kissed the small, pale fingers.

Hank had trouble breathing. It was so warm.

“What about calling him ‘Hank?’” Luther asked, still chuckling.

“Don’t do that to the kid,” Hank said. “That’s child abuse.”

Luther nudged him with an elbow. “Well, he’d grow up a big, handsome guy who has to beat off throngs of admirers with a stick.”

Hank rolled his eyes. “I’m only beating off one thing.” He raised one hand and wiggled the fingers.

Kara groaned and smacked her forehead with her palm. “Good Lord. You know you’re going to have to tone that down when the baby comes.”

Luther, who was trying very hard to keep it together for his wife’s sake, clutched her hand and said, “It’s okay, you can spell it out until he learns to read. At age  _four_.”

Kara made an exasperated face.

“He or she,” Luther added.

“All right,” Kara said, putting a protective hand over her belly again, “at this rate, neither of you are going to see this child.”

 

She didn’t know it then—and it would follow Hank right to his grave—but she was right.


	5. Baltimore - November 2048

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not Hank or Connor, but there's a fair bit of self-harm in this chapter. And angst. It does a body good.

**Baltimore - November 2048**

 

 _Now, for a limited time only: see a piece of living history in Baltimore! On November thirtieth, the_ U.S.S. Jericho _will be docking at Fell’s Point._ Jericho _is a full-scale, working reproduction of one of the ships that helped America win its independence! Come on board and step back in time to 1775! See how the brave sailors of this country’s first navy lived, slept, ate, and fought—all in incredible detail!  But this historic wonder can only stay a little while, so don’t wait to book_ your _personal visit. The_ Jericho _sails away for a world tour on January first! Tickets on sale now_ —

 

Hank poked the panel and the screen went dark. Digging the heels of his hands into his eyes set afterimages floating on his eyelids. He’d probably seen the ad ten times. There was nothing to watch, no beer to make it so it didn’t matter.

Lazy snowflakes had been drifting down on and off since morning, taking their sweet time with it. They stuck in the dead grass and just stayed. At this rate, there wouldn’t be nearly enough for ground cover, even by dusk.

November—what a useless month. Not even real weather. There were these big banks of cloud laid thick over everything, a threat that never delivered. They just spit out little flurries while the streets got grayer and the grass got browner. A real snow would cover up most of the ugly, but it looked like November was determined to wait.

It wasn’t that Hank even liked snow. It sucked. If he touched anything or went anywhere in the stuff, it got up in his cuffs and gloves and socks and kept them damp all the way through February. But it stayed white much longer these days: a bleachy white that was almost blue. Hank could remember the plows pushing it all into hills on either side of the street, and those hills turning gray from car exhaust in a couple hours. These days the roadsides were cleaner, but the plow operators still didn’t give a shit about blocking people into their driveways.

From his perch on the recliner, Hank looked over at Sumo, crashed out on the rug. He snuffled in his sleep, rolled over, and farted.

“Jesus Christ, dog,” Hank muttered as the wall of stench drifted his way. Maybe it _was_ time to change his food.

Connor was sitting on the couch, staring at the dark screen.

Hank wasn’t sure if it was doing some sort of...software update? “Hey,” he said softly.

It turned at once, dark eyes completely alert. “Yes, Hank?”

For a second, Hank considered giving it a _never mind_ , but the thought of flipping through the whole gamut of streaming services again was just too depressing to take. People on TV did less than he was doing these days: just talking in circles about things that didn’t matter. During the trial, Hank had done a lifetime’s worth of talking about what _did_ matter—against his attorney’s advice. But he wasn’t a speaker, never had been. There was no way to get across exactly what Simon Brandt had done when he’d carved Luther Freeman out of the world. No way for Hank to make his memory play out for the grand jury and get them to understand that Luther’s being gone made a way bigger, emptier hole in the world than the space he’d taken up in life.

They hadn’t bought it. Cops die; they sign up for it. They have to try hard not to, but try even harder not to kill.

If Hank was like Connor, with hardware that could just pop out of his skull, he’d have told that asshole lawyer to set up a big screen in the courthouse square and play his brain like a video. Not Brandt’s death. They already knew that part. Let them watch that April morning—perfect early spring day like the city almost never gets—with the shiny casket and flag, Hank in his too-tight uniform with nothing to say to the pregnant woman who just had half of her life torn out.

_Just let them come at me then._

Hank cracked his knuckles with a dry-branch sound. “You bored?” he asked Connor.

“I don’t experience boredom.”

It didn’t sound like a dig, but Hank had a hard time not taking it that way. “Good for you, kid.”

Connor opened its mouth to clarify. It was starting to get predictable.

Hank held up a hand. “It’s fine. I know you’ve got a whole wide world of wonder up in your gourd there.”

“True, but unlimited information is not always a substitute for action,” it said. “Many humans claim boredom even while they have access to all of the information on the interlink.”

“How do you know?” asked Hank.

“StreamTV shows.” One corner of Connor’s mouth curled up in a knowing little smile. “Twitter.”

Hank huffed a laugh. He’d been about to say that a machine couldn’t learn much about humans from a tweet, but that probably wasn’t true. The damn site had been an invitation to overshare since Hank was a kid. He’d had a thing called Instagram back when there were “smartphones.” JawDot had killed the phone function—and texting, too, when you could just voice-scribe a muttered text without taking anything out of your pocket. But even then, he didn’t have anything important to post about, aside from the occasional notice that he’d ripped off one of his mom’s prescriptions and had pills to sell. Nobody really cared what a pimply kid from West Baltimore had for dinner.

Anyway, the old app was long dead. Once kids could holo themselves into concert videos and celebrity home tours, people largely rolled their eyes and gave up.

“Besides reading Twitter feeds, what do you do up there while you’re just staring into nothing?” Hank asked, tapping his own head.

Connor smiled. “I often run multiple processes. Some are diagnostic. Some research-based. Human history is...vast. Earlier, I examined a multi-dimensional model of a clay tablet from the Library of Ashurbanipal compared to an aggregate glossary of cuneiform symbols.”

“Jesus,” Hank said. “Guess you can’t _be_ a machine and not be a nerd. About half those words made sense to me.”

Connor perked up. “It was—” He stopped, considered, and seemed to redirect. “On this particular tablet, an Assyrian merchant complained about the price of wheat. And about his wife.”

That cracked Hank up. He slapped his knee and Sumo woke with a grunt, raising his head. “Well, shit,” Hank said. “Looks like people never change.”

“City records indicate you were never legally married,” Connor said, tipping his chin.

“Never married, period,” said Hank. “Legal or not. Not my thing.”

“Why not?”

Hank rubbed the bridge of his nose, stalling for time. “Uh, well...didn’t work out that way, I guess. This job—it’s not good for marriages.”

“You mean the job of a police detective,” said Connor.

“Yeah, Connor. The one I don’t do anymore.” Hank looked away, scowling.

“That was insensitive.” Connor’s voice had lost its excited curiosity. “I apologize. I didn’t mean for it to come across that way.”

There was the usual wave of bitterness to fend off, but Hank wasn’t angry. He didn’t have the energy. “No, it’s fine. Not like it isn’t true.”

“Perhaps you’ll have time for intimate relationships now,” Connor said. It was tough to keep the perky little bastard down, for sure.

Hank’s laugh was hollow this time. “That particular ship has sailed, bud.” He waved a hand in Sumo’s direction. “Anyway, I think this furry asshole is the only guy in the world who can put up with my shit.”

Connor fell silent for a moment. Then: “Speaking of ships, maybe you’d like to tour the one that will be docking at Fells Point. There was an advertisement on the stream.”

Hank raised his eyebrows. “You were watching the TV, too?”

“Yes,” it said, brightening.

“Right, right. Processes.”

He grinned. “And monitoring the ambient exterior and interior temperature, as well as your heart rate.”

Hank grimaced. “Whoa, whoa. Don’t get creepy, huh?” His throat was dry; a cold one would be amazing just then. “Anyway, those things are a rip-off. Probably won’t have the credit for one ticket, not to mention two, even when my pay goes through.”

“Two?” Connor asked. “Yes, I would also like to see it, if possible.”

Hank stopped short, flustered. “Well, uh, it’s your job to keep track of me, yeah? I’d have to drag you on a boat, too.”

“Maybe there’s a virtual tour. Many museums offer them at a reduced cost—”

“Museums are kind of like marriages,” said Hank. “You get me?”

Connor looked up at him from under its brows. “Not your thing.”

“Hole in one.”

Connor’s chin dipped further; he looked down at his lap.

“Look,” Hank said, “it’s a replica, anyway. Not the real thing.”

“I know. The original _Jericho_ was burned by its crew in 1778 to prevent capture by British naval forces. Though I understand the ship’s bell was recovered from the bay a few years later.” He paused, wearing a slim and wistful little smile. “Sometimes, a replica can have a small part of the real thing.”

Silent and a little uncomfortable, Hank shifted his butt in the chair, his hip joint giving a muffled pop against the fabric. “Okay, what else did you find poking around in your head?” he finally asked.

A brisk nod—back to business. “The Farmer’s Almanac predicts unusually low precipitation and very cold temperatures in the Northeast this winter.”

Hank looked toward the window. “Could’ve told you that.”

“Also,” Connor said, “the circus is in town.”

Hank sputtered a laugh in disbelief. “You... _what_?”

“Doctor Oddity’s Big Top Show will be at Power Plant Live through the weekend,” it said, with much more seriousness than something that ridiculous-sounding deserved.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Hank. “How is it still going? I thought the animal rights people shut down all the circuses back in the twenties.”

“There are no animals,” Connor said. Its face looked eager but also a little sly. “The performers are androids.”

Hank ran a hand through his hair. “Ho-lee balls. Wish I’d thought that up. I’d be raking it in.”

“The show has gotten a great deal of recent media attention, yes.”

“That name’s gotta go, though,” Hank said, shaking his head. “Some Marilyn Manson shit.”

Connor stopped moving, but only for a fraction of a second.

Its download time was getting quicker. Either that or it was starting to learn what to look for, and that made Hank a little uncomfortable.

“A late twentieth and early twenty-first century performer,” said Connor. “Born 1969, died 2030, aged sixty-one, from complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. The Visionary Art Museum featured a retrospective of his paintings in 2035. I would think, after sampling his work, that you would at least enjoy the music, if not the art.”

“Nah,” Hank said. “If I wanted songs about makeup and fucking, I’d listen to NeoWave. Keep that glam crap. Good metal has _crunch_.”

Connor raised one sculpted eyebrow. “You might find this interesting,” it said. “Carlos Tanaka of the group Aortic Rupture composed some original music for the Doctor Oddity show. You have the band’s _Self Hate Express_ album in your collection.”

That made Hank flinch. He stabbed a finger in Connor’s direction. “First off, stay out of my personal shit, huh?”

“Music is personal?”

“You’re damn right it is. And...don’t do that heart rate thing on me, either.”

“All right, Hank,” Connor said. “Was there a second point you wanted to make?”

“Huh?” Connor had a talent for pushing Hank from zero to flustered in record time. Well, maybe not _record_. Amanda Stern could probably give him a run for his money. Her and that shitbird Reed.

“You said ‘first off,’” Connor told him.

Hank scowled and sat quietly. There was probably a list of gripes going down to at least fifty, but all of it had flown his mind. He had a sudden strong urge to put on _Self Hate Express_. Hell of a product, that one. “Okay, yeah,” he said, “second, I don’t have the credit for that, either. Unless it’s ‘bring your android for free’ night.”

Connor raised his hand, one finger pointed toward the ceiling. “Actually—”

Groaning, Hank held up a hand. “Fine. Just...send the link to my flex. But no snooping.”

“Of course.” It was wearing the lawyer face but probably dancing a jig on the inside, which was a truly weird image.

Hank had never once been to a circus. He hoped to God it wasn’t all kids. At least the thing about the music was a good sign. Maybe he could watch some dumbass machine break its synthetic neck as a bonus.

He heaved out of the recliner. “Gonna take the big lug for a walk,” he said. “You can tag along, but I’m going to be listening to music and not yapping.”

Connor dipped his chin in silent agreement.

 

*

 

Hank had returned in high spirits from the walk, but now—with Connor in a silent LyftCab headed downtown—he was trying to convince his nerves to stop jangling, and it wasn’t working. It irked him, too. Maybe his unease had started with the t-shirt. Out of the shower and with an extra coat of antiperspirant in case it got hellish hot in the tent, Hank had put on his Star Wars Episode X shirt. Had it really been that long since he’d worn it? The logo stretched over his gut, going warped like the movie’s opening crawl. Jesus, that came out—what, 2025? Okay, he had to admit that fifty-three was a long way from thirty. It crossed his mind to shuck it before it stretched too far and sell it as a collector’s item. The franchise had hit the Big Seven-Zero only a year ago, but honestly it had been a letdown.

 _George Lucas_ — _RIP, loser._ If he hadn’t still been around to stick his fingers in the latest trilogy, the stupid shirt might be worth a lot more.

By that time, the clock was telling Hank it was “fuck it” time, so he’d put on a fleece pullover and called it done.

Truth was, Hank hadn’t been out in public while off the job in ten years, maybe more. Well, he’d hit up Jimmy’s, but he was pretty sure his regular bar didn’t count as “public.”

For once, the way Connor was dressed played to his advantage. The getup, on top of the fact that it was pale and weird and clueless, would make it harder for people to mistake the android for mid-life crisis arm candy. Half-pension Hank could never afford a real person who looked like Connor. He couldn’t afford a real person who looked like _himself_.

As it turned out, “pale and weird” was the order of the day as Hank scanned the crowd. The people filing through the turnstiles were mostly twenty-somethings. He saw a number of those fluorescent retinal implants all the kids were getting. There were a few full-on Goth Revival idiots in tailcoats and top hats and pocket watches, but by and large it was a jeans-and-hoodies event. The couple of kids under thirteen or so were quiet and a little cowed. As it should be.

The entryway spilled out onto a plaza with three striped tents. They were the same slick, inflatable hard-side things that the Magpies used, only opaque and probably way more expensive.

The largest was black and red, bristling with sharp points made to look like tent poles even though it probably didn’t need or have them. Off to their left was a black-and-orange tent, the smallest, and to the right one slightly larger in purple and black. The effect was a lot like a real-world Halloweentown from that old stop-motion flick. Now there was some nostalgia out of left field. Before age ten, Hank had loved that movie. All the spooky stuff was where it was at; Christmastown sucked hard—and that opinion was completely separate from the fact that he himself had never had a tree or presents one single Christmas in his life.

Connor followed him through the admission gate, tracing the peaks of the big top with its gaze but not getting too wide-eyed about it, which Hank had to appreciate.

The frigid air smelled like popcorn, the scent rising from the black-and-orange tent, where thousands of kernels tumbled into a huge, donut-shaped vat from the kettle in the center.

Smiling teenagers were handing out boxes of candy and oversized drinks, slinging the popcorn into whiskey barrel-sized buckets. Just as Hank started to think they were a little too excited about it, he realized they weren’t actually smiling. Instead, each one had a fake grin painted in black, stretching from cheek to cheek. The lines were crosshatched to make it look like their faces had been slit then stitched back together.

It wasn’t corpse paint, but it wasn’t too laughable, either.

Hank declined to drop any credit on the food and motioned for a reluctant Connor to follow him out. He didn’t quite get the foot-dragging; the android couldn’t eat anything, anyway.

They meandered over to the big tent, where heavy bass thrummed through the entryway loudly enough to set up a little vibration in the walls. Hank felt the same little bump of pleased excitement that came when a band started its sound check. Hopefully this wouldn’t be a complete waste of money and time.

For being cheap, the seats were pretty okay. Just like Hank figured, there were no tent poles to block the view of the three rings. Connor sat upright, rigid, without touching the seat back. Something about his private-school-kid posture this time seemed tense, not just, well, the usual.

“You cool?” Hank asked.

It blinked a couple of times. “Yes. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“You and me both,” Hank said. A thought occurred to him a second or two after that. “But, like, you _could_ ,” he offered.

More blinking.

“Your network feed thing. You could look at these androids and see what they do. Right?”

Connor looked almost abashed. “I could. But…” When he frowned it was almost funny. “I don’t know if this makes sense, but I would prefer not to know. I feel it might...lessen my own experience, even if it is secondhand.”

Hank laughed. “Yeah, kid. I get it. I don’t like spoilers, either. Sometimes not knowing how things are going to play out is the only thing that adds a little excitement. Especially at my age.”

“There are many things I don’t know,” Connor said.

Scoffing, Hank said, “You’ve got the whole universe in your head. You know more than I do.” The words felt untrue, though, especially the last part.

Whether Connor could was moot for the moment, because spotlights began to swing around the tent in blinding circles. A brutal double kick stomped in under blazing guitars and Hank thought he might actually enjoy himself.

Killer sound aside, though, his interest started to slip bit by bit as the show went on. A human ringmaster—or one who claimed to be human—talked up the acts like they were about to see twenty or so androids get the guillotine. But the performances by and large pretty normal circus fare from what Hank knew: the high wire, trapeze, acrobats and jugglers. The only difference was that there was no safety net underneath. Maybe it was impressive for the broke youngsters who’d never been up close with an android. But having seen how precise and perfect Connor’s movements were, Hank found the likelihood of one of them taking an accidental nose dive pretty low. Even the clown acts that ran into each other and face-planted on purpose didn’t keep his attention.

He nudged Connor, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the ring. “I need to get out of here. My ass is numb.” He was already getting up and muscling past a sea of knees, forcing Connor to follow.

Outside, it asked, “Are you feeling unwell?”

For no reason he could name, Hank felt guilty—like he’d dragged a kid out of a birthday party. “Hungry,” he said as cover. “Was, uh, feeling lightheaded.”

That seemed to do the trick; Connor went right into worry mode. “Of course. Would you like to sit while I get you something?”

“No, no. I’m not dying.”

They walked over to the concessions tent, where Hank very reluctantly parted with seven bucks for a corn dog. He wanted something to wash it down with, but refused to give over another ten or something for a soda. The sharp taste of the mustard was mouth-watering enough that it didn’t matter in the end, and he put the thing away in record time, dredging up the last of the dijon with his fingertips. He’d been hungrier than he thought, which made the guilty feeling ease up a little.

“Yeah,” he said. “Needed that. You want to check out that other tent?”

At least that got a smile and an eager nod.

Jagged lettering on the purple-and-black tent read: FREAKSHOW. A sign beside the door read _Extreme Sideshow Acts. Not for the Faint of Heart! 18+ Only._

Hank turned and looked at Connor, raising his eyebrows. He took the lack of a reaction as agreement and went to the attendant to scan in the little microchipped pass from the gate.

Inside, the tent was dark as a closet and divvied up into narrow corridors that opened on little circular rooms. In the center of the first, an android was lit with a blue overhead light that forced its perfect facial features into skull-like shadows. This one had facial hair—a pretty impressive beard, actually. Hank didn’t know any were made like that. It was shirtless, but there was no chest hair. Maybe the beard was a fake. A banner over its head read: Boris the Living Bulletin Board.

“Boris” wiggled the fingers of one hand in an authentically creepy wave, then took up a flyer for the circus from a stool beside it. From one on the other side, it took a heavy duty construction staple gun.

“Aw, _shit_ ,” Hank said, intrigued.

The android slapped the flyer against its bare chest and without a pause pinned it directly to its skin with a huge staple. Its face registered something like pain, but barely. Afterward, it raised its empty hand and the one holding the gun, a gesture of triumph.

Hank wasn’t sure if he was supposed to clap.

Boris swept another flyer off the chair, grinned, and held it to his head, driving the staple into his temple without flinching.

With the solid crunching click, both Connor and Hank jumped a little.

Insane as it was, the human bulletin board act turned out to be nothing more than a warm-up for the rest of the chambers. In the next, there was a female android—petite and with black hair that hung to its waist—under a banner calling it The Spider-Woman. It was busily sewing a switchback pattern of cord with a heavy gauge needle through the skin of its forearm. Red-painted lips pursed every time the needle went in. The wounds leaked a blue fluid that was unnaturally bright under the eerie light.

“Pincushion Paul” was a lanky model with close-cropped hair. Hank and Connor watched it putting long, wicked-looking nails through the meat of its palm and between the webbing of its fingers. More of the blue stuff was dripping onto the mat at its feet. Its face showed no physical reaction to what it was doing, except for the eyes, which ran with real-looking tears. The wetness on its cheeks moved in and out of view, showing up milky on dark skin.

Hank looked over at Connor. His shoulders were straight but his fingers twitched with something that looked an awful lot like sympathy.

They hustled to the last room only to be stopped short by a figure hovering in mid-air. Only after looking closely did Hank see it was suspended above the ground by ropes attached to two parallel rows of metal rings embedded in the flesh from shoulder to calf. The skin stretched into distended points, recalling the top of the main tent. The corn dog sat heavy in Hank’s stomach, a greasy lump.  

Of all the acts, this one Hank had seen a human do. A woman, actually, who wore the rings in her back and legs like other women would wear earrings. It had been at a club—edgy and weird but not an all-out sex place—and he’d watched with admiration and no small amount of nausea as she was strung up from the ceiling.

Connor had a hand over its mouth.

Hank pulled on his sleeve. “C’mon. I’m just about done here.”

“Yes.” It was a very soft whisper.

Coming out into the freezing night made it seem as though the freakshow tent had been even hotter than it was. Hank actually pulled off his beat-up fleece and let the chill raise the hair on his arms.

People were starting to leave the main tent, so he hustled Connor along until they could get to the cab stand.

Connor didn’t say anything on the ride home and Hank was getting fairly sure he’d managed to traumatize a machine. It made him unsure and self-critical, which for him translated to pissy.

At home, he let Connor put the dog out and went right into the bathroom for a shower. He did give in just a little before hitting the sack, sticking his head out the bedroom door and asking if Connor needed anything.

His pale hand was buried in Sumo’s fur. “No, thank you, Hank,” he said.

Even though Hank expected to have trouble getting there, the black of sleep caught up with him almost immediately. If he had any dreams in the first half of the night, they all faded away when he woke with no explanation at around two-thirty. Everything was so wrapped in silence he could be convinced it had finally snowed. A peek past the grubby bedroom curtains showed only the yellow puddle of a streetlight over a bank of dead leaves by the storm drain.

He shivered and yawned, walking into the bathroom for a piss. After the sound of the flush, he heard Sumo’s claws clicking. The dog paced in front of the bedroom and Hank at once felt like a heel for shutting him out.

But when he opened the door, Sumo wheeled and padded toward the living room. In a weird echo of the previous morning, Connor sat unmoving on the sofa, palms resting on its knees, staring into blackness.

Hank gave Sumo an absent scratch behind the ear, as much for his own reassurance as the dog’s. “Hey, uh, Connor,” he said. It came out a whole lot more hesitant than he’d wanted.

His pulse sped up a little when the android didn’t answer right away. Waking up for no reason was odd enough; now, things were checking off boxes on the Uh-Oh List. You stay keyed up and paranoid for as many years as he had and the instinct gets _really_ hard to shake.

Finally, Connor shook out of his trance, half-raising one hand and turning his head. “I did hear you,” he said. “I was completing an examination.”

“Thought you shorted out,” Hank said.

“I function on electrical impulses in much the same way that organic beings do. I do not have circuits in the traditional sense. Androids are not robots.”

Hank cleared his throat. “Good to know.” Where he might have expected Connor to fill the next few moments with chatter or reassurance, he got only silence. If he wasn’t wrong, the android had sounded a little melancholy, sending Hank partway down the short road to fight or flight in case it had turned on the emotions and gone sideways. “Listen, kid,” he tried, “sorry if you got messed up by the thing tonight. Wasn’t what I expected, either.”

“Oh,” Connor said, as if the fact that he was talking to someone other than himself had only just sunk in. “No, you misunderstand. I didn’t experience trauma. I doubt I would have, even if I had activated emotional response.”

Hank let himself feel a little relief.

“I’m only...trying to understand. Some of what I— _we_ —saw seems to defy logic.”

“So you did take a peek on your feed.”

Connor’s face read guilty.

“Like what?” asked Hank, re-directing.

There was a strange frailty in Connor’s expression, like it couldn’t keep its brows pinned down long enough to look concerned. By far the most _mobile_ Hank had ever seen his face—mobile even for a human. The hackles went up a little more. If Connor was spooked, Hank figured he sure better be, too.

“Inflicting intentional bodily damage,” Connor said, “that is beyond the unit’s capacity for self-repair.”

“So they won’t, uh, heal from what they were doing?”

“Not in the way humans do. Synthetic skin like ours does not close or scar. The androids are professionally repaired. Sometimes they repair one another and at other times rely on the member of staff trained to do so.”

“Huh,” Hank said, shooting a quick look around the dark room before parking one of his ass cheeks on the arm of the couch. _Let’s not get too comfortable_. “Well, I guess outfits with human performers have somebody like that, too. Unless they’re dirt poor. Didn’t seem to me like Doctor Strange was hurting for cash.”

“Oddity,” Connor corrected.

“Whatever,” said Hank. “That’s not the point. People do that kind of stuff as entertainment, too. That nail-through-the-hand shit was a new one on me, but I saw a girl who did the”—he raised his hand to hover, palm down, in the air—“hanging thing.”

Connor leaned forward, interested. “She put the rings through her skin during every performance?”

“Oh, no,” Hank said. “I don’t think so. I didn’t see any blood. I think she just, you know, did it once and left them in.” He sniffed. “Can’t imagine it’s comfortable hanging from nothing but your damn skin, though.”

“No,” Connor admitted. “Not without an anesthetic. And you believe she didn’t use one.”

Hank scratched his beard and scrubbed a hand over his messy bed hair. This was turning from unsettling to awkward. “Well, I don’t really know. But I think that’s part of the appeal. The ones watching kind of want to know that it hurts the person who’s doing it. And I think more than a few of the ones doing it get off on the pain, you know?”

Connor’s brow furrowed again. “‘Get off?’ You mean they obtain sexual gratification from it?”

“Ah, jeez.” Hank hoped that Connor couldn’t see him blushing in the weak light leaking from the bedroom. It was like giving the birds and bees talk to a ten-year-old.

_You’re gonna feel this and that; you’re gonna grow hair; for God’s sake wear a rubber and don’t knock her up._

“Some of them, sure. There are way too many reasons why humans fuck themselves up to go into at three in the damn morning.”

“These androids did not,” Connor said.

“Didn’t what?”

“Gain sexual gratification.”

Hank pushed off the arm of the couch. “Whoa, bud. There is a whole lot to unpack there. I mean, outside of the fact that you...folks...can get...can _feel_ —“ He felt like he was sitting in front of a fireplace all of a sudden. “I mean, they don’t have to feel anything. Not, uh, emotion. Or even pain.”

“Yes,” Connor said, his tone getting more urgent. “That is what I’m trying to ‘unpack,’ as you said. The models in the freakshow tent had all engaged either their physical or emotional responses, or both, to a greater or lesser degree. And I don’t understand why some did and some did not.”

“Why not? You ran their feed things.”

Looking abashed for the umpteenth time, Connor said, “Yes, but not ever having engaged my own emotional responses, it was difficult.”

With a deep breath, Hank settled his butt back on the couch. As long as he didn’t have to talk about _sex_ . “Well, life can come at you hard sometimes,” he said. “Especially if you’re, uh, _young_. Some people—humans—they do extreme stuff to cover the pain of something else. Or if their life is the same crap day in and day out, maybe they do it to feel alive.” Hank felt moved to throw a note of caution in there, which was stupid. Connor wasn’t his nephew or some Boys and Girls Club punk whose parents needed someplace wholesome to dump Junior. He was a near-indestructible machine with a lot more angst than than necessary. Maybe that was worse—who knew? “Listen, though,” he added, shaking a finger, “the stuff you do to hurt yourself like that? Sometimes it doesn’t hurt right away. But you keep doing it and suddenly you’re up to your neck in shit when you swore you were just up to your knees.”

Connor’s expression was solemn, considered. “Like drugs.”

“Yeah,” Hank said. He’d never felt more like a beat cop doing a school presentation. “Quick study.”

“I don’t know if I’d want to activate emotional response if it made me want to do things like that,” Connor said.

At least that was a good sign...for the time being. Not that the Q-and-A was over.

“Has emotion ever made _you_ want to hurt yourself?” asked Connor.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re the android.”

“But,” Connor started, obviously catching on that Hank wasn’t keen on pouring his heart out, “emotions are supposed to make us behave more like humans.”

Hank sighed and looked at him. “All the more reason not to turn them on. At least not around me. I already told you, I’m a bad example. Maybe when this is all over, you’ll get some bleeding heart to sit there and tell you all about how he swims with alligators because mommy never hugged him. But for now, you’re stuck with me.”

Tentative, he reached out and patted Connor’s shoulder, which felt like a regular human shoulder. _Right: not robots._ “Why don’t you go back to—back to thinking...but about something else, huh? We can talk in the morning. In the _later_ morning.”

“I’ll try, Hank.”

Again, it sounded so sad and defeated that Hank really couldn’t be sure he wasn’t missing something big.

Just then, Sumo began to growl, his ruff rising like a lion’s mane.

Hank had _Shut up_ on the tip of his tongue when he heard the sound of shattering glass from the kitchen. “Fuck!” he hissed, crouching on instinct. Sumo launched into a volley of barks and lunged toward the noise. Hank only just managed to grab his collar and haul him back, almost falling on his ass in the process. If the person breaking in had a gun, they’d take the dog down first. They always did.

Connor was standing tense and alert, poised to fight.

At that moment, Hank was tempted to sic him on the intruder, but instead he motioned silently for him to stay there and hauled Sumo into the bedroom. He ran straight to the bathroom, knocking away the toilet tank lid. The heavy polyresin clattered to the floor but didn’t break. He wrenched the Sig out, snapping tape and ripping plastic.

Tearing away the rest of the wrapping with his teeth, he shut Sumo into the bathroom. His barking turned panicked and screamy, ramping up the tension. Hank got a little relief when the gun powered on and unlocked with a press of his fingertip.

Connor wasn’t in the living room.

And then, suddenly, he was. An unseen force had thrown him backward from the kitchen. He skidded briefly, almost knocking into Hank’s legs, and then was up, scrambling back to his feet like a dropped cockroach and charging through the doorway.

“Connor, wait!” Hank shouted. A loud crackle sounded from the kitchen as one of the fiberboard cabinets splintered. Hank flattened his back against the wall just outside the doorway, his pistol at the ready. After a breath, he rounded the corner and fired a shot, catching only the air between Connor and the intruder as the guy went flying toward the open front door. The bullet thunked into the wall.

Hank followed the guy—a tall figure in black wearing a black balaclava—with the muzzle of the Sig, shouting at Connor to stay behind him.

After tumbling into the yard, the stranger had pulled himself into a crouch and was starting to stand when he appeared to spot the gun. He launched out of Hank’s sights at once and the second bullet ricocheted with a hot yellow spark off the front walk. Prepped to give chase, Hank brought the pistol back to ready, but what felt like a steel beam caught him in the stomach on his first step. He nearly dropped the gun.

Connor shoved him backwards, though it was much more gentle than the way he’d treated the other guy.

When Hank got his breath and balance back, he saw Connor standing in the doorway, unmoving. “What the hell?” he yelled. “I could have got him! You just let him go?”

“It ran,” Connor said.

“Well, can’t you fucking run?” Exasperated, steaming, Hank thumbed the gun to lock and slammed it on the counter.

“The probability was high that you would have been hurt or killed,” Connor said. “I couldn’t take the chance.”

“Well, thank you very much, Mister Knight in Shining Armor, but I can take care of myself.”

“Trust me when I say, Hank, your gun would have made little difference.”

“That’s not your damn decision to make.”

Connor shut the door and turned slowly. “It was in this case. I don’t think you understood me earlier. That was not a human being.”

Hank stopped cold. “The _fuck_?”

“I believe the only reason that it left was because it didn’t know I was here,” Connor said. “It expected you to be alone.” It moved forward, covering an insane amount of ground in a half-second, and swiped the Sig from the countertop. “And _unarmed_.”

“Hey!” Hank said. It turned out a pretty weak protest.

Connor was examining the pistol. “Under the terms of your agreement with the city, you were required to surrender all department-issue _and_ personal firearms.”

Fighting the sinking feeling in his gut, Hank said, “So sue me. What, are you going to be my bodyguard? What if that thing comes back shooting?”

Frowning, Connor tucked the pistol into the waistband of its immaculate pants. “I don’t believe it will come back.”

Hank threw up his hands. “You’re awfully assured for a guy who was playing Twenty Questions about feelings five minutes ago!”

“I’m trained in security and close combat,” Connor shot back. “Not in ‘feelings.’”

“Programmed,” Hank said. “Not trained. You’re _programmed_. Like the...fucking... _Matrix_.”

“You’ll have to be more specific, Hank. I know of more than one thing that can be described as a matrix.”

“My point exactly.” Hank was preparing to head straight for the bedroom and that decently full bottle of hooch, secrets be damned. “Go on,” he said. “Do your thing. Report it. But I’m going to get good and senseless before they come drag me off to Jessup.” He crossed the kitchen but stopped at the doorway and turned. “Hell, you probably don’t have to do it. They can read it off your plastic friend’s processor, there.”

“Hank,” Connor said, its voice low and even.

Hank didn’t turn around, but he did stop walking.

“That android was not from the courts or from CyberLife. I scanned for it as I was attempting to hold it off. It was not in the system at all.”

Then, Hank did wheel around, shock making him dizzy. “So how did you—?” he started, then shook his head. “Never mind. I guess anything strong enough to throw you around has to be an android.”

“Yes,” said Connor. “And I _am_ sorry about your cabinet,” he said, and raised a hand to brush wood chips from his hair.

Hank sure wanted to laugh, but he was still treading eggshells for the time being. “Damn. So either that was something nobody’s ever heard of or deviancy is real.”

“Yes,” Connor repeated.

“Well, fuck.” Hank put out a hand, clutching the door frame to steady himself. “This is way bigger than Prescott and the court.”

“It seems unlikely that anyone from the city’s administration—even if it had a deviant or prototype android in its employ—would send it here knowing that I would also be here. Not unless it was given significant physical advantages or weaponry. Which it wasn’t. While under my protection, the court does not appear to consider you a threat.”

“Yeah,” Hank said, scowling. “Thanks for that.” He decided not to give himself too much room to be offended. “So, if that’s the case, it’s someone who doesn’t know the specifics of the Monitor program. That’s about ninety-nine percent of the city. And they still obviously have a bone to pick, which narrows it down to about _half_ the city. Fantastic.” Maybe he would bust out the strong stuff, after all.

“The number of people who want to see you hurt is probably much larger than the number of those who want to actively hurt you,” Connor said. “And the ones who would go through with it smaller than that.”

“Right,” said Hank. He was trying hard to be annoyed, but the old, dirty excitement was flooding back like rainwater from a clogged grate. He didn’t flag down the bull, but damned if he didn’t like being in the pen. “My money’s on Markus Brandt. Or someone like those kids from Lexington. But where they’d run into a deviant android is beyond me.”

Connor stroked his chin. “Not to mention one that would agree to carry out a hit.”

Raising his eyebrows, Hank said, “Look at you and your cop lingo.”

Smiling slightly but not speaking, Connor tapped his forefinger against his head.

“Clearly it’s not enough that I’m a sitting duck,” Hank said. “Don’t know what tipped it one way or the other, but someone wants me gone.”

“Which is why the logical choice is to keep the firearm,” Connor said.

At last, Hank let himself grin. “Well, three cheers for logic.” He held out his hand.

Connor raised his chin. “I think I’ll hold onto it for now. After all, under the terms of your agreement, I am also required to go wherever you do.”

Hank rolled his eyes, letting his hand drop to his side. The adrenaline spike had faded and left him wanting to crawl back into bed more than he wanted a drink. “Great. Twitchy android with identity issues is now twitchy android with identity issues _and a gun_. We’ll see how that upgrade goes.”

With perfect calm, Connor said, “Considering the difficulty you’re having adjusting to civilian life, perhaps I’m not the only one in this room with identity issues.”

Hank shot him the finger but it was half-assed. “You’re gonna be the only one in this room, _period_ , ‘cause I’m going to bed.” He started toward the bedroom. “Do something useful in the meantime and look up Brandt, huh? Markus with a ‘k.’ Well, you read the file. And let Sumo out. He probably pissed on the rug.”

“You got it, Detective,” Connor said.

It wasn’t clear whether or not he could see the double-bird salute Hank threw over his shoulder.

In the morning, there was a piece of cardboard tacked over the broken half-window in the front door. No wonder it had been a little chilly when Hank had finally slipped out from under the covers. Great—something he’d have to dump credit to fix. The thought irked him but it also made him laugh a little, because you had to know you were getting old when shelling out for repairs and higher heating bills cheesed you off more than an attempt on your life. Either that, or he was just used to being a target.

“You seem cheerful this morning, Hank,” Connor said. He’d found the spot about four inches above the base of Sumo’s tail where scratching turned him into a fuzzy lump of jelly.

The dog raised his head some to look at Hank, his tongue slapping wetly against the lino. It sounded like someone tossing fish filets into a pan.

“You,” Hank said, pointing a finger, “disgusting animal. Come on over here.”

Connor stopped scratching and the dog heaved to his feet and ambled toward Hank for more attention.

“You’re spoiled now, huh?” Hank asked.

Sumo smacked his droopy lips and whined.

“That was rhetorical,” Hank told him.

“ _Very_ cheerful,” Connor said. His tone was still light, but his eyes were narrowed slightly.

“What can I say?” said Hank, standing up. It was rough on his knees so soon out of bed. “Slept well. Adrenaline crash, I guess.”

Connor nodded, looking unconvinced.

Hank scanned the fridge for breakfast options but came up empty. There were some sausages in the freezer. They were encased in a layer of ice but otherwise, he figured, pretty okay. “What did you find out?” he asked, tipping the block of frozen meat into the sink. A blast of tap water made it hiss and crackle.  

“May I touch those?” asked Connor. “Analyze,” he corrected. “They look...old.”

Hank shrugged. “Touch away.”

Connor stepped up to the sink and swiped one white fingertip across the tortured-looking links. Then he pressed the finger to his tongue.

“Aw, gross,” said Hank, dodging out of the way to grab a pan.

“It’s quite useful,” Connor said. “While my skin is heat- and damage-sensitive, my tongue can parse a substance into its individual components. I can isolate contaminants and harmful microorganisms.”

“Of which there is how much in my breakfast?” Hank asked.

“None.” He added: “If you cook thoroughly.”

“Christ. I do _not_ want to know.”

Connor shrugged. “It’s similar to the human sense of taste, only more complex. But still, your species developed an aversion to bitter foods, as toxic fruits and seeds are often bitter.”

“Evolution didn’t bank on beer, then, did it?” said Hank, transferring the wet sausages to the skillet.

“One of the oldest man-made beverages,” said Connor. “And, like many things about humanity, a contradiction.”

Any remaining food poisoning fears dissolved just like the fragrant steam that started to waft from the pan. Sumo had settled himself at Hank’s feet and was winding up the begging machine. “So, you going to small-talk me to death or do you actually have some information?” Hank asked.

Connor sat down again, content to let Hank take his chances with cooking. “Markus Brandt, thirty-eight years old, born Markus Finley Williams on June fourth, 2010 in Detroit, Michigan. Ethnicity: Ethiopian, German, English, and Irish. Both parents still living. Moved to Baltimore in 2028 to pursue a degree in contemporary art history at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Married Simon Pavel Kucharski in 2037; both spouses adopted ‘Brandt’ as a last name, the maiden name of Markus’s maternal grandmother.”

Hank huffed and flipped one of the sausages. “I wouldn’t want to be ‘Kucharski’ either.” A drop of hot grease landed on the back of his hand. He hissed at the sting and licked it off.

“A common Polish surname, from _kucharz_ , meaning ‘to cook,’” Connor said. “So, no. Not appropriate in this case.”

“You busting my balls because of the gun?” Hank asked. “Or because I didn’t want to talk heavy at three in the morning?”

Connor paused, puzzled. “I was led to believe teasing is a sign of camaraderie among humans. Familiarity.”

“You stopped a break-in and now we’re chummy, huh?” Hank’s temper was getting short wrestling with breakfast. The sausages would bubble and char on one side and stay basically raw on the other.

“That isn’t what happened,” said Connor.

“No?”

“No. I didn’t stop a break-in. What I did was save your life.”

Hank set the battered spatula down on the side of the stove. “Look,” he said, “I’m trying to find out who wants me dead. Can’t blame a guy for being a little on edge.”

Connor stared at him, unblinking.

“I’m not just using you for information. I’m not—” Hank bit the inside of his cheek. The whole night had put up _something weird_ between him and Connor. Or maybe not even put up, but taken down. It was way more predictable dealing with perps and petty crooks. They always went one way and it was the stupid one.

“Okay,” he said, “if I ask very nicely, will you fix this mess I’m making here? And we can talk about whatever you want after breakfast.”

“All right,” said Connor. It didn’t move to get up, though.

Hank sighed. “Please.”

“Certainly, Hank.” Connor rose and came toward the stove.

Hank edged out of the way with relief.

After giving Sumo a pat, Connor reduced the heat to the burner and set about patching the botched fry-up.

A few minutes later, Hank let him roll the sausages onto his plate with a gratitude he just couldn’t quite get off the tip of his tongue. It was a simple breakfast but a good one. When he’d finished up eating and was blotting grease from his mustache (might be nice to have hair that didn’t grow), Connor started in again on the fact-listing. Apparently, Brandt worked as curator for a place called the South City Gallery, which Hank had never heard of—but that was no surprise.

What _did_ catch his notice was the fact that the gallery was about to open with a show by Carl Manfred. Manfred was Baltimore-born painter who’d high-tailed it to New York once he started getting attention. Looked like he still had a soft spot for the old hometown, because it was supposed to be all new stuff, too.

Manfred’s big paintings went for millions these days. Hank knew fuck-all about art; they looked like the guy had just thrown paint at a canvas over and over. The only reason he even knew the guy’s name was that way back when he was still on the beat he’d worked security for one of the shows. Some yahoo was sending death threats over it, because the paintings had titles like “My Daddy Touched Me Wrong” or something. They didn’t even show anything controversial—just the same paint slapped all over in random patterns—but Hank guessed Manfred’s family problems hit a nerve with somebody.

He remembered being unimpressed—with both the paintings and with Manfred’s attitude. Millions of kids had shitty childhoods; you didn’t go and make your art show into a pity party about it. Especially not when your parents were probably dead. Manfred had been fairly old back then, so he must be ancient by now.

“Well,” Hank told Connor, “we can’t exactly show up opening night. I’m guessing running the whole show is going to trump ‘I worked security for you twenty-something years ago.’”

“Most likely,” Connor said. “But there might be a much easier way to reach Mister Manfred. He is traveling with an android caretaker.”

“Oh, shit,” Hank said. “Of course. He’s rolling in it; why wouldn’t he have one?”

“I can contact Ralph through the data feed,” Connor said, “and ask him to relay a message.”

Hank chuckled. “Its name is _Ralph?_  Ralph the android. Jesus. Sounds like a kids’ show.”

If the dig got to Connor in any way, he didn’t show it. “The model has been a companion to Carl Manfred for nearly five years. Its history indicates that its given name was Bryce. It was invited by Manfred to rename itself if desired. They appear to share a very close bond.”

“Wait,” Hank said, putting a hand on Connor’s forearm like it would somehow stop transmission or whatever he did. “Don’t send anything just yet. Can’t you, like, open up a private channel or something? What if somebody is listening in?”

It was Connor’s turn to laugh. “The data stream doesn’t work that way. All data are openly shareable within all minds in the system. But that doesn’t mean that every android is constantly experiencing what each other one does. Only that everything is available.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Hank said, “I’m not even going to pretend to understand that. I just want to know if somebody from the city, or somebody working with Brandt, could _hear_ you, I guess. I don’t know...hack in.”

“No,” Connor said.

If Hank wasn’t wrong, it sounded a little defensive. “Okay,” he said, raising his hands in surrender.

“Only those within the system have access,” Connor explained. “Not even CyberLife monitors it. If an individual android’s cortex is scanned, its personal experiences can be accessed, along with the ones it selected at any time before decommission. But _only_ those. There are quintillions of data packets that remain unseen at any given time. And you have to understand: the loop only exists as itself. There is no physical hub. It’s not a network, Hank. It’s...an organism. A multicellular living thing.”

By that time, Connor’s tone had gone from terse to sort of dreamy, like the way a teenage girl would talk about her favorite movie star. Hank was sure, even after their chat a few days ago, that Connor still had his—possibly metaphorical—boner for this Kamski dude. It was annoying. Not the movie star, or any scientist or politician or _anyone,_ deserved a pedestal. They were all down in the muck with the rest of humanity, like it or not.

“Okay, great,” he said. “Just hold off. ‘Cause the chances that Manfred doesn’t know or doesn’t care about my case are hovering around zero. He’s a Baltimore boy at heart, and he’s obviously on Brandt’s side. We need leverage.”

“The only evidence presented at your trial to support your claim that Simon Brandt killed your partner was the closed-circuit footage from the convenience store,” Connor said.

“There was more than that,” said Hank. “A smoking gun. Literally. It was DNA-locked to Simon. My lab guy mapped the barrel and printed a repro. Perfect ballistic match to the bullets they pulled out of Luther.”

Connor looked stricken. “Why didn’t you say anything? It would have exonerated you.”

“Inadmissible. That gun never went into the system. As far as the Baltimore PD knows, it’s still missing, because the uniform who took the surrender handed it to me instead. No matter how shitty you are, everybody lives by the rule: cops don’t rat out their own.”

By then, Connor was leaning away, recoiling from the information—or from Hank. “There were far too many variables involved. If it really was Simon Brandt’s gun, someone else could have done the same thing.”

“And then steal the real one?” asked Hank. “They tossed the Brandt place. No gun. Markus said Simon didn’t have one. He obviously kept it in a different place. That’s what people do: they hide shit from each other. Even the ones you think you know the best.”

He was getting agitated; this stuff was derailing the plan to get to Manfred. It was all said and done, anyway. Nothing he or Connor could do about it, even if they tried. He should have just kept his mouth shut. That’s what he deserved for getting comfortable around a logic-spewing supercomputer just because it had a face.

“Nothing in what you said justifies vigilantism, Hank.”

Hank gave a sharp and humorless laugh. “I’m a cop. It’s not ‘vigilantism.’ It’s doing my fucking _job_.”

“Outside of the law,” Connor said. “You chose one path and forced the evidence onto it, even when you knew there were multiple logical options.”

“Yeah, well, remember when I told you emotions make you do stupid things? You should. It was—what, last night?”

There was a hard set to Connor’s mouth. “We discussed emotion making humans want to harm themselves. Not others.”

Hank stood up, furious. “Well, I’m harmed! Out of a job, dirt poor, and stuck with a talking appliance!”

Connor shook his head slowly. “Simon Brandt didn’t have to die.”

“Neither did Luther! He was a good cop. And a good _man_. Nobody wants to remember that—that there’s a woman out there without a husband, a kid without a father!” Hank was shouting now, shaking with anger. “It’s fucking unfair. And I’m pissed off about it. _That’s_ why I don’t buy any of this shit about God, or a plan, or whatever. Because good people die. They die in bad ways, every day. And this whole time, I’m just watching it all go by. It shouldn’t have been him, Connor. It should have been—”

He stopped, words backing up in his throat: things he couldn’t say out loud or even in his own mind. Maybe he _was_ a coward, pissing out this pathetic existence because, when it came down to it, he wasn’t strong enough to just put the muzzle to his—

There was something on Connor’s face that wasn’t horror or anger or any non-feeling android approximation. It might have been worse. “Oh, Hank.”

Hank turned around so he didn’t have to see it. Blood was thumping in his temples. Hatred he could take. Rage, disgust: the simple stuff, he could take it. Pity, he couldn’t. He felt light pressure on his left shoulder. He twisted away and backed up to the wall. “Don’t touch me,” he hissed. “Don’t you fucking touch me. _Ever_.”

“All right, Hank,” Connor said.

Right then, Hank hated the sound of his name in the android’s mouth. He hated the fact that his vision was swimming, his eyes stinging. He’d be double-goddamned if he was going to lose it in front of Connor, though, so he rushed to the bedroom.

The tears came in the shower, and Hank hated himself for that, too.


	6. Interlude: March 2046

Hank set his empty coffee mug down on Luther’s desk. That didn’t get any reaction, so he did it again—this time hard enough to make the steel shudder.

“Earth to Detective Freeman,” he said.

Luther raised his head, but there was something _lost_ about his eyes. Like his brain was slow coming back from somewhere that wasn’t the empty precinct building.

It creeped Hank to the max because that _other place_ almost always contained bad shit. After all, he’d been there often enough. He waved a hand in front of his partner’s face. “This is ground control. Luther, you’re off the clock.”

“Shit.” Luther smiled, but his face still hadn’t put itself back together quite right. “That time, huh?”

Hank tried a smile, but his radar was pinging, going off like a goddamn car alarm. Luther was his barometer. Hank looked to him for cues, and felt like he was dangling in the wind without him. If Luther said a scene was bad, then you _knew_ it was bad. If Luther lost his cool on a scene, it was okay if Hank did. Otherwise, he’d provide the hand on Hank’s shoulder telling him to back down.

If something was messing Luther up from the inside...well you’d better just check how your world was holding up, because it was about to get a nasty shake.

“You need a pint and a shoulder to cry on?” Hank asked.

Luther frowned and tapped his pen against the desk surface. He got this shape like a dog’s paw in the skin right between his eyebrows when he was concentrating. It didn’t show up unless he was thinking over something big, but it was there now.

“I understand if you’ve got to get home,” said Hank, hoping at that point he would say no.

“You know,” said Luther at last, “I think I might take you up on that. Let me call the wife.”

Hank stepped away from the desk, allowing his partner some privacy and himself a little relief. If he took the time to call Kara, then it probably wasn’t something with his marriage. Which was good, because pressing Hank for relationship advice was like—in his own opinion—asking a guy with no legs for his shoe size.

If it was work, Hank would know about it, right? What else did that leave? Some health thing? Did he dump his life savings in some underground Tuesday night poker racket? None of those was a topic Hank really craved chatting about. He was on the edge of trying to come up with an excuse Luther would buy when Luther appeared at his side, packed up with his jacket on and wearing that distracted expression.

Hank actually suggested they hit The Tap Room. He hated the place, but some part of him was afraid Luther’s weird funk might somehow infect Jimmy’s. He needed a joint where the booze flowed and the memories stopped cold.

Luther didn’t argue, and he didn’t say anything when they settled at the bar instead of in a booth. Hank wanted to see other people, to map his escape route. The occasional blast of cool air from the opening door would keep him sharp. Well, sharp _ish_.

Hank sucked the froth off his pint, swabbed his mustache with a bar napkin, and took a breath. “Everything’s okay with the missus, right?”

Luther shook his head, but he was smiling. “Oh, yeah. She’s my dream girl. Always will be.”

Trying to match that smile, Hank thumped Luther on the shoulder with the heel of his hand. His jaw felt tight. “Good man. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

“Don’t I know it.” Another slow shake of his head. He took a healthy swig of his own beer—a stout, which Hank could never handle. It was like drinking bread.

“I don’t know,” Luther said. “It’s just...this city sometimes.”

Hank sniffed. “Try growing up here.”

Luther looked toward the door. Circles of light swung across it as quiet cars rounded the corner one after another. “Yeah. I’d be a pretty different person, I guess.”

 _Someone more like you_ , is what Hank heard. He tapped his credit meter on the bar. It was time for the first whiskey chaser.

The dog’s-paw shape appeared on Luther’s forehead again. His mouth was moving a little—his jaw tensing and then relaxing—like it wanted to say things his brain kept yanking back. “It just gets to you. You know? How _deep_ it goes. All the...shit.”

Hank cleared his throat to cover a flinch. Luther swore once in a blue moon: only in front of squad guys, not uniforms. _Definitely_ not around rookies. He wasn’t above the occasional dirty innuendo, but cursing in front of Kara was unthinkable. Luther had been brought up right, as they say, in a stable home in Prince George’s County, Maryland. His mother had taught at some university before retiring, his father at a local public high school. Both were old Gen X-ers who’d never caught the apathy going around when they were young. They’d made sure Luther had at least gotten a college degree—criminal justice from UBaltimore—before he’d joined the force. Hank had never met them in person, but he was fairly sure that even coming up in Charm City, Luther would have turned out okay with folks like that.

“Gotta let it go, man,” Hank told him. It was a platitude, totally lame. The standard company line.

“Yeah,” Luther said, the pint glass hovering halfway up to his mouth. He’d only taken a few sips, while Hank was almost finished with his, never mind the whiskey. “Yeah.”

“Was it the girl?” Hank tried again. “Shatrice Whatserface?”  It was like picking a sore: he didn’t really want blood all over his fingers but he almost had to know what was raw under there, what still itched.

The girl he was talking about—her name was Shatrice Fellows and Hank knew that, but for now it was especially important to play it off like he’d let it go, like what happened to her wasn’t already in his head for good. Some night it would spring up like a wooden cut-out at a carnival shooting range and smash Hank’s mood flat, but not right now.

Shatrice—quiet, smart, pretty—had fallen in with some dipshit gangbanger. She hadn’t even been there when her idiot boyfriend had gone off on some rival about his taste in women (namely that the “women” were of the under-fifteen variety). But she _was_ at his place when the guy and his buddies came knocking. They made him watch what they did to her, then shot her twice in the chest. Afterwards, they took a tire iron to the boyfriend. By some miracle, someone called the gunshots in, but when patrol showed up, Shatrice was gone and Boyfriend was minus a face. Far as Hank knew, he was still in Mercy Hospital breathing from a tube in his fucking neck.

Things like Shatrice’s death were why guys like him needed twenty-four-seven distraction. If it wasn’t watching TV or getting shitfaced, it was putting your dick in something so you could blank out even for just a few seconds. After the the thing with Daniel had ended ten years before, Hank had been doing a whole lot more of the former than the latter.

“Yeah,” Luther said. He paused, looking for words, literally grabbing at air with one hand. “But at the same time, no. It’s all of it. Humanity’s supposed to be in this amazing new age. Like, we’ve got fake people now, but they look and think like real people. Only _better_ , because some guy wired their brains so they don’t kill each other. Or us. We created the perfect idea of what we want to be. And what does it do? Serve lunch and babysit our kids.” He sighed and thumped his huge fist down on the bar top.

“Whoa, whoa,” said Hank. “Since when have you been hanging around androids? You don’t know they’re like that. That they don’t think about, you know, killing us in our sleep.”

Luther scowled. “Maybe. I just know people’ve got more time to do other people wrong.”

“I don’t care how much sten they move—those bangers could never afford an android,” Hank said. “The rich ones have the time.”

At that point, Luther looked over at him, and it spooked Hank enough to want to bolt for the door. “You say that like they aren’t just as bad. Or worse.”

Desperate, unsettled, Hank flagged down the barman for another double. “Well, hell,” he said, “we all know the system ain’t perfect. There’s shit coming up from the bottom and shit raining down from up top. For us in the middle, it’s about finding space to keep breathing.”

It wasn’t any profound goddamn wisdom, but Hank still felt like a fraud saying it. He needed Luther to keep it together. It was self-preservation; if Luther lost it, Hank knew he’d shake apart.

Luther wouldn’t look at him. He set down the beer, not even half of it gone. “Kara wants us to try for a baby.”

Hank choked out a relieved laugh. He pounded Luther on the back. “Damn, buddy. You could just come out and say it. Look, that’s a huge thing. Nobody’s going to blame you for looking at the big picture.”

Luther shot him a half-hearted smile. “You’re probably right.”

“If anybody in this fucked-up town should have a kid,” said Hank, “it’s you and Kara.”

At that, though, the smile slid from Luther’s face. He looked over at the door again, and the endless line of cars moving in the dark.


	7. Baltimore - November 2048

It was a stupid, immature thought, but it was the first one Hank had when he woke up: _I just want to hole up in my room all day_. Going out (in all likelihood) wouldn’t just mean awkwardness with Connor, but probably a visit from Prescott or Stern. No, scratch that—they wouldn’t step in this mess after they’d just cleaned their shoes. It’d be a few uniformed goons, a pat-down, and a trip to Jessup.

Hank had no idea who would take Sumo. That was probably what pissed him off most.

He showered and put on something halfway decent before making his appearance. The dumb fucking mutt assaulted him right off the bat, his tail as heavy as a nightstick thumping into things all over the place: Hank's thigh, the couch, the end table. He could muster the energy to scratch behind Sumo’s ears, but that sticky, tear-filled feeling welled up every time he tried to say something.

Connor wasn’t in the living room. It was in the kitchen instead, staring out the window over the sink.

For some reason, the coffee pot was full and steaming.

“Good morning, Hank,” Connor said without turning around.

“At least somebody’s is.”

The android turned then. It had its jacket unbuttoned, revealing a plain black shirt below.

Hank did a double take. It wasn’t going to convince him to say anything about it, though, if that was the strategy.

“I know you’d probably rather not talk to me—” Connor started.

Hank interrupted: “Superhuman perception, hard at work. Hey, is there someplace I can review this after I get out of prison? The CyberLife site, maybe? Probably give it three out of five.” He affected a TV-commercial voice, at the same time going to the cupboard for a mug: “‘Monitor was okay. A little uptight. Bad fashion sense. But great when you need a recipe and don’t have your fucking hands free.’”

“I recognize that you’re lashing out,” said Connor.

“And again!” Hank said. “Goddamn marvel of engineering.” His hands were shaking so badly he poured half the coffee over his hand and wrist. The pain of the scald actually calmed him down a little.

“We should talk about the gun.”

“Jesus Christ,” Hank said, “I told you I’m not going to—”

Connor’s voice was loud and forceful. “ _Not about your gun_.”

Another stabilizing splash of burning coffee tipped onto Hank’s skin. He wanted to snap to with a comeback but all he could do was stand, gaping. The thing had actually cut him off.

“We’ve already discussed that,” Connor said, sounding a whole hell of a lot like he was talking to a teenager out past curfew. “It’s over.”

A little shiver of... _something_...wiggled its way up Hank’s spine. It occurred to him that Connor had never spoken to him with anything but caution. If some young prick thinking he was hot shit had snapped at Hank that way while he was with the PD, Hank would have torn him a new one on the spot. But this time, the words for a Biblical takedown just weren’t coming. “Yeah,” he managed, “well…”

“The gun that was DNA-locked to Simon Brandt,” Connor said. “I briefed the android named Ralph on the case while you were sleeping. I was cautious about what I disclosed. Ralph believes Manfred might be open to hearing our—the other side of the story. If we—that is, if compelling physical evidence is provided.”

Hank was pretty sure his eyeballs were one blink away from falling into his coffee. For what was probably the first time since childhood, Hank fucking Anderson—who had a retort for everyone and their mother—was speechless.

Connor had slipped back into searching-for-approval mode, chin tilted down and looking upward.

But his work was effectively done. All the bluster was out of Hank’s sails, his brain set to “shuffle.”

“Do you know where the gun is now?” Connor prompted gently.

“Uh,” Hank managed. He set the coffee mug down on the counter, raised the hand he’d been holding it with halfway to his face, then remembered it was drenched and switched to scrub the other hand over his beard. “I, uh... _no_. Shit, it could be scrap by now. But I know someone I—we could ask.”

“Then,” Connor said, giving it enough of pause to make his meaning clear, “ _we_ should do that.”

Dickey in CSI hadn’t been all that close to Hank, largely because “close to Hank” wasn’t really a thing, and more so after Luther. But they had a mutual respect going, even if it was unspoken. Dickey, like Hank, was an old-timer and a gold-star sonofabitch on top of it. Tough not to have a chip on the old shoulder when your name was Richard Dickey.

It had been pure luck that the Ruger SR1915 had fallen into his hands. Dickey loved ballistics and firearms history. Hank personally thought it was a shitty gun, but it was a limited edition and Dickey way too curious to see who would pick one up. When he’d snagged a hit in CODIS, he’d called Hank first thing.

“He’s the guy that found the gun,” Hank told Connor. “Well, picked it up from property after it was surrendered. Never got logged. He might still have it.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

It wasn’t something Hank wanted to think about, so he brushed it off. “One lead at a time. We’ll head downtown and shanghai my man, and if it’s a dead end, we’ll come back and re-assess.”

And hell, if the gun wasn’t there, maybe Connor could fake it like he did with the tracking device. It was too early to start thinking about how to convince him, so Hank just put on his coat.

He parked a couple blocks up from the annex where the crime scene unit was housed. After a long time not wearing his Dot, Hank found it hard to get used to the once-familiar sensations: the little loop over his ear, the adhesive receiver just below it. While a gust blew pine straw across the car’s windshield, he tapped the Dot and announced, “Voice call Richard Dickey.”

From Connor’s expression, it wasn’t clear he got the humor in the name. Hank turned and looked straight ahead as the line picked up.

“Well, what in the fuck?” Dickey said. “Hank Anderson.”

Hank heard a long slurp from the other end—that would be the plastic cup of soda Dickey always carried around. The cup itself was one of those one-point-two-liter monsters from a gas station. Nobody knew which gas station, though, because the print had long ago rubbed off on Dickey’s sweaty fingers. He probably got it before the switch to metric. The thing was somehow always full like a fucking Hanukkah lamp, always with Dr. Pepper. The way Dickey had ballooned after pounding soda for a few decades made Hank feel a whole lot better about his own extra chub.

“Dickie Dickey,” Hank said. “Still hanging low?”

“And to the left,” Dickey told him. “You back on the job?”

“You wish.” _I wish_. Hank scratched an eyebrow. “Can we meet up? Buy you a drink for old time’s sake?”

“Across the street?”

Hank made a face. “Was thinking a few blocks down. Remember the Greek diner on Commerce?”

The noise Dickey made didn’t sound promising. A man of his size was not inclined to walk.

Hank tried to pre-empt. “I’ll swing by and pick you up in my slick civilian ride.”

Another grumble from Dickey’s end traveled through Hank’s mandible. “They got the good stuff there?”

“Nothing but primo Pepsi products,” said Hank. “I checked.”

Dickey paused. “Yeah, all right. What car am I looking for?”

“Gray thirty-five Tesla.”

“Slick, my ass.”

“Do me a favor and don’t tell me about your personal life.”

“Yeah, fuck you, Hank. See you soon.”

As soon as the car was in gear, Connor piped up. “Should I move to the back seat?”

Hank hadn’t thought about it. He didn’t want to press his luck with the good graces of either Dickey or Connor. “Uh, no, it’s fine. Just maybe move your seat up. Button on the side by the door. He’s...a big guy.”

If it was possible, Dickey had gotten _bigger_ since Hank’s less-than-graceful exit. His jeans were rubbed white on the inseam and cut into his belly so it looked like a mushroom under his polo shirt.

“Jesus,” Hank mumbled.

“I’ll get in the back,” said Connor.

When he got out, though, Dickey stopped short, the liquid sloshing in his cup. “Who the hell is this?” he asked.

Yet another thing Hank hadn’t given any thought to.

Connor stepped toward Dickey and put out a hand. “I’m an android, created by CyberLife Corporation. Model RK800. Hank knows me as Connor.”

At that point, Hank had opened his door and was looking over the roof of the car with the same anticipation as a nature photographer about to capture a wildlife throwdown.

“Damn,” said Dickey, drawing out the word. “Are you serious?”

“Perfectly,” Connor said.

Dickey looked past him to Hank. “Anderson, living the sweet life. Your rich uncle die?”

“Someone did,” was Connor’s immediate response.

Hank stared daggers at him. He wasn’t close enough to smack him upside the head.

Dickey roared laughter. “Hey, I like this thing!”

Scowling, Hank said, “Okay, you two shake hands and let’s eat, for fuck’s sake.”

At the Downtown Diner, Hank decided on an Italian sub. It had lettuce and tomato; maybe Connor wouldn’t bitch. Dickey ordered a Greek salad...on top of a full breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and toast.

Connor sat on Hank’s side of the booth near the wall, hands folded in his lap.

Bless his poker face, Hank thought. “So, Dick,” he said, “that Ruger—the 1915—you keep it?”

Dickey almost spat out a mouthful of toast. “You jerking my chain? Of course I didn’t keep it. Sent it off for slagging once the indictment came down.” He stabbed a rubbery slice of pancake with his fork. “No offense, old buddy. But C-Y-A. Am I right?”

Cursing to himself, Hank said, “Right. Of course.”

The bite of pancake went into Dickey’s mouth, then he immediately spoke, still trying to chew at the same time and pointing his fork at Hank’s face. “Oh, but there was that waste management contract thing,” he said. He coughed once.

Hank held up a hand, afraid of getting sprayed with Dickey’s breakfast. “It’s okay, finish your bite.”

After a little more chewing, Dickey swallowed. It looked painful. He downed half the cup of soda to chase it. “Yeah,” he said. “Few months ago, the city lost its contract with the company that was handling scrap. Big fucking surprise: _not_ the company’s fault. Non-payment of bills by the city, I heard. They were about to take them to court when suddenly City Hall’s flush again. Probably took it out of the schools. I don’t speculate.”

“So?” Hank asked.

Dickey folded a greasy slice of bacon into fourths and popped the whole thing in his mouth. “So...the backlog is probably huge. That gun might still be there. Why you need it, _again_ , I have no idea. As long as it doesn’t get back to me.”

“Shit, Dickster. You know it never will.”

For once, Dickey seemed somber. He probably would have faced charges, too, if Hank had brought up the gun at trial. “Yeah, bud. I know.”

In the car after dropping off Dickey and his refilled soda cup, Hank told Connor, “Dickey’s kind of a mess. But he’s a good guy. Good for what we need.”

Connor nodded. “I thought it would be best if you took the lead. He respects you.”

“Well,” said Hank, “he knows when to keep his mouth shut.” He didn’t want to turn his head, but he shot a sideways glance at Connor. “And I, you know...appreciate that. In a...someone.”

“You don’t have to thank me for carrying out my mission imperatives,” Connor said, though he was looking down at his lap.

“Thought your mission was to make sure I’m on the straight and narrow,” Hank said. “If not, you got a whole lot of ‘imperatives’ rattling around up there. Not sure how you keep them all straight.”

“As I’ve said before, it’s logical,” said Connor. “Weighing one scenario against another, anticipating possible outcomes.” He paused.

If Hank wasn’t wrong, he was actually rubbing at his knuckles—an unconscious thing—like a kid about to make his speech for class president.

“Actually,” Connor continued, “my primary objective is to observe. And learn. Well, _I_ consider it primary. Along that line, the best choice was to let events play out as they are without intervention.”

Hank felt one corner of his mouth creep upward. “You’re curious.”

Connor looked down at his hands, then over the dashboard, and finally turned his head to stare out the side window.

It was pretty funny.

“A version of it,” he said. “By design.”

“Either that or you just feel sorry for me.” It was baiting, but Hank couldn’t resist. He rarely could.

“No,” Connor said, looking back at Hank with wide eyes. “No.”

Hank raised one eyebrow and made sure it was seen.

“You don’t believe me,” Connor said. “I don’t lie. I can’t.”

Hank’s abrupt laugh filled the car. “Now, that’s horseshit.”

Connor’s shoulders rose up close to his ears, really driving home the nerd kid image. “I mean I _won’t._ Not to you, Hank.” Another pause. Maybe it was the android equivalent of taking a deep breath. “I’ll give you back your gun, if you’d like.”

It was a little hard for Hank to breathe, too. He turned down the heater inside the car. “Nah. You hold onto it for a while. But you’d better do your bodyguard thing. Don’t leave me hanging.”

Connor smiled. “Deal.”

“Plus,” Hank said, poking the button to slide his window down an inch or so, “that’s not the gun to worry about, right? I have an idea.”

Apparently, it was very much a day to cash in favors from roughly three decades of saving asses. Not that he’d saved Dickey’s ass; he could have gone down in flames over the illicit gun, too. Hank had just been one of the few who’d even talk to the sweaty, crass tech everyone else avoided. Looking down on CSI was standard procedure for some detectives and a hobby for others, but Hank had recognized a sharp mind behind the chubby face. From patrol through Homicide, he’d hung onto Dickey, and it was about goddamn time he was paid back in kind.

Preston Barber, on the other hand, _had_ been a rescue. He had a name like a trust fund baby but was honestly a complete piece of shit. Probably came up in a house way more busted up than Hank’s—he hadn’t asked for too many details about it on purpose. When they’d met, Preston was a sten-head who was using his childhood hobby of bypassing security systems to boost stuff he could sell. Too bad he decided to do it mostly _while he was high_ , and getting distracted by all the pretty lights didn’t jibe with quick or sneaky. Maryland was no three-strike state, but Hank knew for a fact that they were getting sick of Preston’s greasy ass up in the courthouse and planned to send him down for a good spell. Hank was the one who busted him the final time, and hauled all hundred-and-twenty pounds of him to rehab instead of the dock.

It only took because Preston started selling the other guys in the program his trade secrets. A counselor got wise to it and called Hank, who made Preston the city’s problem, but in a new way. He’d told the kid to hack the security fence around the impound lot. Preston did it in ten minutes and knocked everyone for a loop. They hired him to oversee the hazardous materials scrap yard on the spot—on the condition that he help upgrade the system.

Preston had put on a little weight since Hank had last seen him, but it had come on evenly enough that he didn’t look like the guy everyone shoved into lockers in high school. And he was sporting one of those Van Dyke beards—it looked okay except for one odd patch by the corner of his mouth that was totally white.

His jaw dropped almost to his chest when he saw Hank coming up the walk.

Hank took that as a good sign until he realized it wasn’t so much his old detective buddy Preston was looking at, but _Connor_.

Without his jacket, Preston walked out into of the guard station and into the wind to greet them. “Holy balls, Detective Anderson”—he pointed over Hank’s shoulder— “is that an android?”

Hank hadn’t been expecting that one. “Uh, yeah.”

“It’s yours?” asked Preston.

If he tried to walk past, Hank was going to clothesline him...as politely as possible. But he stayed a respectful distance for the time being. “No,” Hank told him. “It—Connor—we’re working together.”

“Connor,” Preston repeated. He looked almost as bugshit as he had back in his sten days, and it was severely unbalancing Hank’s calm. Finally, he turned to face Hank. “You get a job with CyberLife or something?”

“Or something,” Hank said, hoping to cut the thread of that particular conversation.

“Never seen that one come by,” Preston said.

_So much for trying_.

“It’s gorgeous.”

At that, Hank got a solid grip on Preston’s shoulder. He shot a look back at Connor, who stood with hands by his sides, not swayed by Preston’s fawning. “Hey, put it back in your pants, huh?” said Hank. “I got a few questions.”

That seemed to shake him. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Sure. Why don’t you come inside? It’s a little cramped, uh…”

“I can stay out here,” Connor offered. “I’m not affected by cold.”

“Great idea,” Hank said before Preston could get a word in edgewise. He shoved Preston toward his post. It was blessedly warm inside.

Preston lunged and poked the standby button on his flex, which was sitting on the desktop, but not before Hank saw what he’d been looking at.

_Furry Fox Babes. Christ on a cracker._

“What can I do ya for?” Preston asked.

Hank explained the situation, and Preston confirmed the backlog. He couldn’t be entirely sure that the gun hadn’t been slagged yet, but Hank— _and Connor,_ he made sure to mention—were welcome to “poke around.”

Even though it was freezing outside and getting colder, Hank was glad to leave the guard house. Just because Preston was clean now didn’t mean he wasn’t still slimy. Hank watched his beady eyes watching them as the retaining wall, which was topped with old-fashioned concertina wire, split down the middle and rumbled open.

“I accessed the specs for the Ruger SR1915,” Connor said. “I should be able to recognize it, provided it’s still here.”

“It’s got some sort of signal?” Hank asked. “Like you can...communicate with it?”

Connor laughed. It was entirely too light a sound for the day. “No. But I can discern its shape. Like puzzle pieces.” The smile faded a little. “It might not be a good idea to create weapons that communicate.”

What Hank didn’t say was, _Way too late for that, buddy. I’m talking to one right now_. Instead, he asked, “So...we dig?”

With a shrug, Connor said, “Basically.”

Hank wished he’d brought his heated gloves from the car; the metal of the discarded guns was bitingly cold. And God knew whether a knife or a needle had managed to make its way into the piles. But it was too late. He dug a little and kicked at the heaps. There seemed to be no order to it. Or, if there was, it wasn’t anything he could figure out. He half-wondered if Preston had “organized” the piles of pistols according to whatever was slithering around in his brain.

A little winded, his breath steaming in the freezing air, Hank took a break, stepping out of the rubble and leaning up against the closest wall. He flinched and backed away when his fingers slid into a little divot in the metal. It felt wet inside, but when he looked at his fingertips they were dry. Giving the niche a closer look, he saw it was a hinge of some kind. There were three of them lined up vertically. So this wasn’t the outer edge of the yard but a door to another section.

He shot a quick look over to Connor, who was picking up and tossing away gun after gun, almost not looking at them. Then he shuffled over a few feet to a pile of ammo boxes. He pushed down on the stack, testing for stability. It might come crashing down, but he only needed to be up there for a second. Just a peek.

With a grunt, he hoisted himself up, holding on with just fingertips so he didn’t cut his hands to ribbons on the wire.

What lay beyond the wall looked like photos of mass graves from twentieth century wars.

His heart shot up into his throat and he flinched back. His reflexes were good enough that he didn’t make a grab for the razor wire, but they couldn’t save him from tumbling to the ground and landing hard on his hip. The air left his lungs in a rush. One of the ammo boxes landed right by his hand and broke open. Only the fact that he rolled over saved him from getting bashed right in the nuts by another box—this one full.

“Hank!” Connor came rushing over. “What happened?”

It took Hank a couple of seconds to get another breath. Now sitting in the dirt (at least it wasn’t mud), he patted his hip. There would be a bruise, but he didn’t think anything was broken. _Break a hip_ — _that’s when you_ know _you’re old_.

“Just a clumsy ass,” he breathed. Now that the physical shock was fading, he could process what he’d seen. Not dead people; even in the colder weather it would be a stinking soup of decay by now. A grave for androids. What was the word Connor had used?

_Decommissioned_.

It still made Hank shudder. He could taste lunch in the back of his throat. He let Connor help him to his feet.

“Are there more over here?” Connor asked.

“No. Just...wanted to look.”

Connor examined the wall.

In a second or two, Hank could see he’d made the same deduction.

“What is it?” he asked.

Hank looked away. “You don’t want to see that.”

Connor tilted his chin. “It won’t upset me. I haven’t engaged emotional response.”

“Yeah,” Hank said, “well, it upsets _me_. So let’s go.” He walked away, back to the piles of guns. When he looked back, Connor still stood staring at the closed door. Hank called after him.

At that point, he turned. Back by Hank’s side, he pulled something from his jacket. “I located the weapon.”

Hank took the gun from his hand and turned it, giving it a once-over. “Thank fuck. Let’s get out of here.” He slapped the pistol back into Connor’s palm.

“Hank?”

“Come on, huh?” He’d already started walking away.

“Were they androids?”

Hank stopped in his tracks, closing his eyes for a moment. He looked back. “I told you you didn’t want to see. Now, can we please get out of here?”

Silent, Connor nodded.

“Get what you need?” asked Preston when they emerged disheveled-looking from the scrapyard.

Well, okay, _Hank_ looked disheveled—with scrapes on his palms and dirt on his ass. Connor was as untouched as ever.

Preston’s eyes were roving over him until Hank knocked him with one shoulder. “Yeah.” He firmly turned Preston’s face back in his direction yet again to ask, even though he already knew: “Hey, what’ve you got there in the other section?”

If possible, Preston’s excitement was even more lewd. He didn’t even try to lower his voice. “Used-up androids, man. Only been a few months, but the place is filling up fast. We’re going to have to expand.”

“Why?” Hank asked, trying to keep the distaste out of his voice. “CyberLife not making ‘em like they used to?”

Preston looked over across the yard. “Nah. From what I know, company used to come pick up all the malfunctioning ones. Now there’s just so many of them, it doesn’t matter. Not to the people who own them.” He waved a hand in Connor’s direction. “These days, somebody’s not happy with theirs, CyberLife just shuts them off remotely. One and done. Leave ‘em out like the recycling and get yourself another model.”

“Christ,” Hank said, rubbing under his lip and looking over at Connor, who remained straight-faced.

Preston shrugged and smiled—an oily expression. “Just business, man.”

“Right,” Hank said. “Business.” At the same time that he wanted to give Preston a teeth-rattling shake, he also didn’t want to touch him. “Keep your nose clean, huh? No more of that furry shit on the job.”

Preston blushed, but there was also a hint of rage that flickered over his face. “Sure, Detective Anderson. Have yourself a great day.”

Without saying anything, Hank turned and walked back down the path.

“‘Bye, Connor,” Preston called.

Hank felt like there was an unspoken _See you soon_ there and it felt colder running around inside him than the dropping temperature.

Back in the car, Connor was all business, much to Hank’s relief. He said that if Hank could have Dickey send them the DNA sequence for Simon Brandt, he could match it with the one that unlocks the Ruger. The gun couldn’t physically be accessed without using a bodily fluid containing Brandt’s DNA, but at least with a match it might be enough to convince Manfred’s android to broker a visit.

About the android graveyard he said nothing, but Hank knew he had heard every word Preston spoke.

Despite the wind that was now screaming down the streets under clouds that only got darker, Hank took Sumo out for a short walk. He had to think. Knowing Connor—or, rather, judging from past discussions—the subject of the decommissioned models at the scrapyard would come up. _Decommissioned_ seemed like a damn sterile word for what Hank had seen: the heaps of naked, jumbled bodies in all colors. They didn’t go ashy gray or white like dead humans did; there were no dark blotches of lividity or parts rotting faster or slower because of weather and location. Their open eyes didn’t shrivel or glaze over. It looked like they could just get up at any moment and climb out of the pit, over the bodies of the others.

He wondered what it looked like, that shutting down. Did they just stop like hitting pause on a video and keel over? Or stay standing like Connor did when he was accessing something? Fucking freaky either way. It just didn’t seem right to shut the lights off on something that could feel.

Of course, people did that to each other all the time. Hank had been staring it in the face just about every day for thirty-two years. Only he wasn’t there to watch the people scream or beg or whatever they did before they went out.

Not usually.

Luther had been the exception.

Hank thought even if he went senile, that would be the one thing that stuck—the one memory of his whole shitty life that would die with him. It almost made him want to go back and tell Connor to forget this whole stupid thing, to piss off while Hank got himself good and drunk and maybe tell him to give his deviant buddy a hand when he came back to break Hank’s neck.

_Almost_.

It wasn’t just feeling like he was back in the game that kept him hanging on, but the old satisfaction of getting pissed off on someone’s behalf. Usually a dead person, but what did it matter? Connor could take care of himself, true—and maybe he wasn’t even a _someone_.

But calling the company to shut off your butler because he brought you the wrong suit was some horseshit, and Hank said as much in the car on the way to Manfred’s place.

“I mean,” he was telling Connor, “it’s obviously proof that Kamchuk or whatever his name is—”

“Kamski,” Connor supplied softly.

“Yeah. Anyway, he’s gotten too big for his damn britches. Bunch of androids go deviant, he thinks he’s losing control and clamps down twice as hard. Now he’s offering a trade-in at the first sign of one getting its own ideas.”

Looking down into his lap, Connor said, “But the public doesn’t know about deviancy.”

“They don’t have to,” Hank said. “Kamski does. CyberLife does. Now they’re just making it easier for people to do what they do, which is use things and throw ‘em out when they’re bored.”

Connor sat still and silent, which frustrated the hell out of Hank.

“Doesn’t it bother you at all?” he asked.

“It doesn’t make logical sense,” Connor conceded. But that was all he would give.

When Hank pressed the doorbell button at the Bolton Hill brownstone, they only had to wait in the newly fallen dark for a few moments before a boyish-looking guy, short, opened the door. Unlike Connor or the android they had seen in Druid Hills Park, there was no mistaking this one for human. His reddish-brown hair flopped over his forehead, half of which was clear and healthy-looking. But on the other half, the skin was pulled tight until over the shape of the skull beneath. Ralph was missing one eyebrow and his cheek looked even worse than the forehead: all hollow like a starving person with that same stretched look. The sclera of one eye was completely blue, the same shade as the fluid dripping onto the floor in the freakshow tent.

It gave Hank the shivers. He wasn’t about to comment on it, either, even if Ralph wasn’t a person.

“Hi, welcome,” he said. “Come in. Carl is waiting for you.”

“‘Carl,’ huh?” Hank whispered as he and Connor walked into the entry hall.

Connor looked confused. “I call you by your first name.”

“Well—” Hank started. He shook his head. “Shit.” The townhouse was smaller than he expected, but the way it was decorated made it look bigger. Or, Hank guessed, the way it _wasn’t_ decorated. At least in the rooms he saw as they walked, all the walls were painted white and had hardly anything on them.

Hank expected antique furniture or something—with carvings, maybe. Big, heavy drapes, some scented stuff in bowls. He didn’t really know how rich people lived. Or regular people, for that matter. Matching the same kind of wood, having things upholstered: that wasn’t anything he had ever cared about.

Ralph led him and Connor into a living room. At least, Hank guessed it was that because of something that looked like a sofa. It was a deep red color, long and curved with a low back and chrome legs, and didn’t look comfortable at all. Manfred wasn’t even sitting on it—he was parked in a power chair in the center of the room, which was lower than ground level by a tall step. The floor was all dark wood but that round middle section was covered by a rug: gray with an off-center stripe of black like a weird cat eye.

To Hank’s mind, it looked like shit, but Manfred probably paid ten grand to have the thing shipped from Guate-fuckin’-mala. _Rich people._

“Well,” said the man in the chair, “I think we all can agree this is an interesting meeting, to say the least.”

“Carl Manfred?” Hank asked, walking past Ralph and stepping down into the middle of the room.

The guy smiled. “That I am.” He stood up. Or, rather, he didn’t. The power chair hummed and rearranged itself so the wheels were stacked on top of each other and Manfred was standing...but somehow still sitting. A harness kept him in place as he stuck out his hand.

Hank tried to control his reaction, but he probably still looked pretty surprised. Hell, the sunken part of the room didn’t have a ramp. The damn chair probably walked up. He hesitated a second, then took Manfred’s hand. It was papery and dry. His face looked the same: spotted with age and crinkled in places Hank wasn’t sure human skin could crease. Of course, Hank hadn’t been around a whole lot of _really_ old people. He was part of the famous Millennial generation: the folks whose parents lived longer than they did. He himself hadn’t expected to get to fifty-three—not with the way he’d always run himself hard.

“I have to say,” Manfred started, “I was dismayed when I heard about your evidence, Mister Anderson. Markus and I have been good friends for a very long time. I was as outraged as anyone when I heard what had happened to Simon.”

“So why did you agree to see me?” Hank asked.

When Manfred looked past Hank’s shoulder at Connor, it was respectful and even proud—nothing like the nakedly creepy way Preston had stared. “Your friend, Connor, was very thorough when he spoke with Ralph.”

_Your friend. He._ Clearly Manfred wasn’t the typical rich asshole, or likely the kind who would have his android shut off and carted away like trash. Of course, Hank probably could have picked that up from the state of Ralph’s face.

Manfred went on: “He was kind enough to transmit the DNA information that you recovered for Ralph to verify. All in all, a diplomatic and considered approach to what is a very emotionally charged subject.”

Hank looked over his shoulder at Connor, who stood at the edge of the step along with Ralph. Neither he nor Hank smiled, but Hank hoped Connor understood it was a pat on the back. He was learning his way around working with people at scary speed.

Looking back at Hank, Manfred said, “I’ve also been alive long enough to understand that things are often not as they seem. Especially in this city. I love Markus dearly, like he’s my own son, but love can blind us. Yes?”

Hank didn’t know how to answer that, so he just combed his fingers through his hair and looked around the room. “None of your own paintings?” he asked. The only art in the room was some ugly-as-sin metal thing mounted on the wall opposite the fireplace. That wall was painted the same shade of red as the couch. The sculpture looked like a jumble of sticks—kindling piled up for a bonfire—except that there was a cast metal eye staring out from between two of the “branches” near the bottom of the pile.

Hank frowned a little.

“I don’t own my art, Mister Anderson,” said Manfred. “The world does. In fact, most of the time, I don’t like seeing them again after they’re sold. I never forget one, though. They are all catalogued in my mind.”

Seeing as Hank couldn’t tell the difference between any of the ones he’d seen on the ‘link, he had to take Manfred’s word for it. He _did,_ however, know what it was like to have pictures burned into his head forever. “Yeah,” he said. “I get that.”

“I bet you’ve seen a lot in your line of work,” Manfred said.

“More than I want to talk about right now,” Hank told him.

Politely, Manfred nodded. “Of course. The matter at hand.” He gestured over to the couch. “Please, Mister Anderson, Connor. Have a seat.”

Connor looked at Hank, who climbed out of the sunken part to park his butt on the weird furniture. It didn’t have a lot of padding, but the cushions were soft to the touch and he caught the faint smell of real leather. Probably cost more than Hank made in a year.

_Used to make_.

Connor sat, too, while Ralph remained standing.

Sure enough, Manfred’s chair bumped up the step onto ground level like a damn NASA rover. He cleared his throat. “Tell me: are you planning to show Markus the DNA evidence you’ve gathered?”

Hank looked at Connor for a second. He hadn’t thought about it. “Not sure.” He paused. “What happened was...well...we had an incident. Somebody broke into my place. Looking for me.”

“It was an android,” Connor filled in. “It didn’t expect me to be there. We believe it was ordered to hurt or kill Hank.”

“Ah,” Manfred said, steepling his fingers. It looked strange since he didn’t have a desk or anything to rest his elbows on. “But you don’t know for sure, because you couldn’t interface.”

“That’s right,” Hank said.

“A deviant,” said Manfred. His eyes were bright.

“Have you met one?” Hank asked right away.

Instead of answering, Manfred looked to his side. “Ralph, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind making Mister Anderson and myself some tea.”

Ralph put a hand on the seat back of the chair, and Manfred rested his own knobby hand on top of it for a moment or two. “Of course.”

After Ralph had left the room, Manfred spoke in a softer voice. “You’ll pardon me if I send Ralph away. I don’t want to frighten him.”

“Frighten him?” Hank asked.

“Has Ralph engaged its emotional responses?” Connor asked.

Manfred’s smile was kind, but he said, “Please, Connor, if you will. I don’t refer to androids as ‘it,’ and I’d appreciate if you’d extend Ralph the same courtesy.”

When Hank glanced over, Connor looked chastened, but clearly there was a lot going on behind his eyes.

“And yes,” Manfred continued, “I want Ralph to be genuine, to have a complete range of experiences. To understand fully what I mean when I say that I appreciate his help and his company. Not to mention allow him to be frustrated when I’m a cranky old bastard. Which is more often than I’d like.” He was looking at Hank, and whether it was on purpose or not, it made Hank feel itchy. “He’s become a dear friend and companion to me—one I will not give up.”

“If I may ask,” Connor spoke up, “why did you not have... _him._..repaired?”

Hank swiveled in his seat, alarmed, but Manfred cut in.

“It’s a valid question,” said Manfred. “Very valid. I would like nothing more than for Ralph to have a new eye. Among other things. I made an inquiry to CyberLife about it. I was told they are no longer offering repairs as they are not cost-effective.” Manfred’s voice was icy.

Hank decided to exploit it. “They offered you another model, didn’t they? They wanted to shut him off.”

Manfred’s nod confirmed it. “I was horrified. Of course I declined, and told them in no uncertain terms that I found it unacceptable.”

“Yeah,” Hank said, “we just learned about the policy, too.”

“Well,” Manfred said, his face falling, “I suppose, then, Ralph already knows.” He looked at Connor.

Hank followed suit. From his face and posture, he figured that if Connor could blush he’d be doing it now.

“I—I didn’t mention it during our communications,” Connor said.

That time, Hank did smile. Couple weeks and he was already handling touchy stuff better than Hank had ever learned to. PD hadn’t usually sent Hank on next-of-kin visits, even if he was lead on the case, and for good reason.

“Prudent,” Manfred said. “And wise. Thank you, Connor. I wish it wasn’t an issue in the first place. I don’t believe this would have happened if Elijah were still there.”

Hank started. “Wait...Kamski?”

“Yes. Have you heard anything about him?”

“I only know what Connor’s told me,” Hank said, confused. “He’s not running CyberLife anymore?”

“The truth is, I don’t know,” said Manfred. “I met Elijah several years ago in New York. He bought one of my paintings. I had heard of him and wanted to know more about him, so I had my publicity team contact CyberLife. Luckily, he was interested in meeting. I won’t say that we were close friends, but we shared a mutual respect. About two years ago, I saw that the piece he’d bought went up for auction at Sotheby’s. When I tried to contact Elijah about it, I couldn’t reach him. Of course, the company won’t confirm or deny that he’s gone.”

“Shit,” Hank said. Then: “Excuse me. I mean, do you think he’s dead?”

“I hope not,” said Manfred. “Elijah is a very private person and can sometimes come off as aloof, but there’s a certain sensitivity to him. He referred to his androids in much the same way I do. In fact, well...I can’t say Ralph was a ‘gift,’ but Elijah asked him if he would like to come assist me, and he agreed.”

Hank was too caught up in the new developments to feel like a heel about the way he’d judged Kamski, but he probably would later.

“Ah, Ralph,” Manfred said.

Hank turned to see the damaged android carrying a tray with a huge tea set. Even that was modern, all angles and strange colors. Had to give Manfred credit: he sure stuck to his theme. Hank took his cup. He hadn’t drunk tea in decades, but this stuff smelled pretty good. He looked over, expecting for a moment to see Connor with a cup in his hand until he remembered.

Manfred took the tea from Ralph and thanked him softly. “So, then, do I infer that you think Markus Brandt might have sent this deviant android after you?”

Avoiding Connor’s gaze, Hank said, “Well, I don’t jump to conclusions. But he’s the one who’s been public about calling for my head.”

“Your imprisonment, Mister Anderson,” said Manfred. “Not your head.”

“Fine. Let’s just say it’s somewhere to start, considering that we all know he’s not happy about how the trial went down.”

Manfred sipped his tea and gave Ralph an approving nod.

That made Hank figure he should give it a shot. It didn’t taste like it had sugar in it, but was still somehow sweet and not nearly as bad as he expected.

After another sip, Manfred said, “I can’t promise you there will be a way to broach the subject of deviants with Markus, but I’ll gather what I can. You need to understand that this doesn’t mean I am taking your side. Or his, necessarily. I want to know for my own purposes.”

“Sure,” said Hank.

“I do know that he sometimes goes to a place called the Gallery. Apparently a camp of sorts. Where people go to take mind-altering drugs.” Manfred’s tone was disapproving.

Hank huffed, trying to cover his surprise. “Yeah. I know it.”

“As a former police officer, I suppose you would,” Manfred said.

Hearing that Markus Brandt went to the Gallery was making Hank antsy. “Drugs weren’t my thing. Murder was. At this point, I’m in the business of preventing my own.”

“Understood,” said Manfred. “I’ll be in contact if I learn anything at all. But there may be nothing.”

“I know,” Hank said, putting his teacup down on the couch and standing up.

The power chair made another humming sound, arranging itself back as a wheelchair. Manfred brought it around toward Hank and Connor. “I’ll see you to the door.”

“I’ll clean up,” Ralph said.

Manfred shot him a smile. “You’re the blessing I don’t deserve, Ralph.” At the front door, Manfred spoke quietly again, out of his companion’s earshot. “If you learn anything further about this deviancy, I’d like to know. I’ll assist you in kind. It’s just...I’d prefer if Ralph were not accessible to CyberLife. I do not trust the motives of whomever is leading it now. To lose my friend would be...devastating.”

The request made Hank uncomfortable. He wondered what Connor was thinking. He’d defended CyberLife and Kamski, but what would he make of knowing that they weren’t one and the same anymore? “Yeah, sure,” he said, trying and failing to put some conviction behind it.

“Also,” Manfred said, “I wonder if I couldn’t ask you to be my escort on a tour of this ‘Gallery.’ As I recall, many years ago you were part of a security detail for a show of mine. Back when you were only Officer Anderson.”

Hank was dumbfounded. If Manfred remembered that, maybe he _did_ have all his paintings memorized. “Um, yeah,” he stammered.

“If it isn’t dangerous.”

“Weird,” said Hank, “but not dangerous. Kind of all peace and love out there.”

“That’s reassuring,” Manfred said. He shook Hank’s hand, and then Connor’s, then let Hank open the door and head out, with Connor close behind him.

Hank let Connor stew a little in the car, shooting glances over at him from time to time. He was fidgeting, going between staring out of the side window to looking down at his hands as he rubbed the knuckles.

Before he decided to rub his synthetic skin right off, Hank said, “You did good in there. Really got a feel for this stuff.”

Connor shrank into himself a little. “Thank you, Hank. It seems”—he stopped, searching for words— “like every answer I get only brings up more questions.”

Hank didn’t want to laugh, but Connor seemed so bowled over and unsure—especially for something who could probably rip a car apart with his bare hands. “Welcome to life, kiddo. I’d tell you it gets better, but…”

“I don’t understand why Ralph would want to disconnect from the feed,” said Connor.

“Maybe he doesn’t,” Hank said. “Maybe it’s just what Manfred wants for him.”

Connor stayed silent for a moment or two. “I think, if I were Ralph, I might be angry. Angry that someone would want to cut me off from so many experiences. If I didn’t have the data loop, and could only access another android’s experiences and thoughts through physical interface, it would be terrible. Frustrating, if I understand the concept of frustration correctly. Like being—”

“Human?” Hank asked.

At once, Connor sunk down into his seat again. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know,” said Hank. “But if you’re concerned about what Ralph wants, why don’t you ask him? Maybe he doesn’t want to be cut off. Maybe he does. Would you think, uh, maybe he’s less logical if he does?”

“I don’t know.”

“Or you could just look in his head if he’s still there.”

Connor’s brows drew in further. “After having met it— _him_ —it…?” He looked up at Hank.

“I don’t care what you call Ralph. I’m not Manfred.”

“After _we_ met,” Connor went on, “it might seem...impolite. Even invasive.”

Hank shrugged. “Well, that’s why some people think being able to read minds isn’t as great as it sounds. You might not like what you find.” He drove for a while, the silence in the car weighed down with thoughts. Finally, he offered: “Sorry for shitting on your friend Kamski.”

Shaking his head, Connor said, “He isn’t my friend. As I said, we’ve never met. I’m...gratified to hear that he might not have any part in decommissioning androids for no reason. But it might have been an irresponsible decision to leave the company.”

Hank nodded. “Can’t predict how people are going to act, and you only know why they did something if they tell you.”

Connor turned toward his window, watching the pools of white light from the LED street lamps go by one after another. “And even then, they might lie.”

“Shit,” Hank said, half to himself, “maybe you’re _too_ good at this.”

Turning again, Connor asked, “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Hank was quick to redirect. “Hey, what if Kamski just set up a new operation? He sees CyberLife circling the drain and bails to start making different androids. Maybe _those_ are what we’re calling ‘deviants,’ and they’re just on a different feed or something?”

“Possible,” Connor said, nodding. “It would disappoint Manfred.”

Hank surprised himself with his reply. “Manfred’s old. He may be filthy-ass rich, but I get the feeling he’s gotten used to disappointment.”

Another pause. “Will you take him to the Gallery?” Connor asked.

“Probably,” said Hank. “But I’m taking _us_ there first. I want to know what Markus Brandt is up to.”

He decided to wait until they were parked by the empty Rowe buildings to break it to Connor that he planned on going in alone. But Hank had seen people on sten and knew what drew their eyes and their grasping hands.

“I can’t do that, Hank,” Connor said. “You agreed that I should accompany and protect you.”

Hank ground his teeth. “Yeah, I understand that. But these people know me. And”—he fought for something that didn’t sound fawning or...inappropriate—“you could be _distracting_.”

“Considering their increasing numbers in the city, it is almost impossible that none of these people has ever seen an android.”

Hank sighed. “But...well, _shit_ , Connor,” he said, letting his hands thump into his lap. “They haven’t seen _you_.”

“I don’t see how my being a unique model would make them react differently. I’m still an android.”

Frustration was boiling up in Hank’s chest, and he was mortified to feel the tingle of a blush by his collar and at his hairline. “It’s just that you’re...how did you say it earlier?” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “‘Pleasing to look at.’” Hank made sure to stare straight ahead after that one. The truth was, Connor’s magazine-ad handsomeness could be a liability with sten-heads.

“Oh,” he said softly. “You think my presence might draw unwanted attention because of my aesthetic value.”

“Something like that,” Hank grumbled.

“And you don’t receive unwanted attention?” Connor asked.

Hank laughed. “Stop yanking my crank, kid.” He shook his head. “Can you just trust me on this one?”

“I don’t like it.”

Hank felt his resolve soften a little. “I know. Listen, okay? I’ll leave my Dot on. If I get into any trouble, you can come do your Superman thing.”

Connor narrowed his eyes. “An interesting human myth.”

“What?”

“Superman. A godlike character created to offset feelings of helplessness due to persecution. You’ve said it yourself, Hank. Androids can’t keep humanity from harming itself.”

Frustration crept back in. “There’s time for this, Connor,” said Hank, “but now ain’t it. I know you can keep _me_ from getting harmed because you’ve done it before. That’s—whatchacallit?—precedent. Sometimes you have to leave the big questions for later.”

Connor nodded. “‘Who is trying to hurt you?’ is a more pressing question. I understand.” He reached back and pulled the Sig from the waistband of his suit pants, then passed it over to Hank grip-first.

After waiting a second, Hank took it. He tucked it in his own waistband, then tapped the Dot below his ear.

Connor nodded. Still, he said, “I don’t believe anyone—human or android—can put off these ‘big questions’ indefinitely.”

Hank didn’t respond, because you sure as fuck could. You could drink; you could take drugs.

_You could die, and that just about took care of everything._

He pried himself out of the car and walked toward the Gallery, the cold prickling his skin all over. He resisted the urge to look back at Connor. From the mishmash of glowing tents, a few separate strains of music were floating up from the camp, all the different beats turning the sound mushy. Hank tapped the stem of his Dot to raise the volume. An idea stopped him just before he hit the first clusters of tents. He pulled a photo of Markus Brandt down from the ‘link on to his flex, even though just looking at the guy’s face made him shake with rage. It wasn’t rational; he knew Markus didn’t know about the gun. But it made him wonder how much Markus had known about this other life that his husband had been hiding...and how many signs he’d ignored.

Hank couldn’t dredge up any sympathy for people who chose to look the other way like that just because it made them happier. Maybe it could go on forever and maybe it couldn’t, but if things blew up, everyone around got hurt. Nobody escaped without cuts and scrapes, or worse. In Simon Brandt’s case, people had died—and he’d been one of them.

But Hank knew deep down that the reason he hated it so much had nothing to do with Markus or Simon, and that was why it pissed him off more than anything else.

Holding the flex out in front of him like some kid with a missing dog, he stepped into the mess that was the Gallery. The grass that had once covered the ground in Franklin Square was long gone, beaten down into walking paths and killed outright where the glowing tents sat on top. The Magpies were never gone long enough to let it grow back. In fact, Hank was pretty sure there hadn’t been a raid for at least five years. Sometimes, the city just surrendered.

Despite the cold, most Magpies were outside their tents, breathing mist into the night air. It wasn’t one luminous dome but the effect of the whole place that kept it interesting. Sometimes, the Magpies would talk to each other, but they’d become used to one another’s faces and the shine had worn down.

Hank walked from group to group, but after about ten minutes, he started to lose patience. Most of those he talked to did one of two things: they either looked past or through him like he wasn’t there, or they stared at the fucking photo of Brandt until he had to wrestle the flex away and head on to the next group of zonked-out pilgrims.

There was a thin guy with a long, dark beard standing in front of one of the bigger tents. Hank had seen the guy before—he was a long-timer. That might have been why, when Hank caught his eye and walked over, he actually paid attention.

Raising his chin, Hank signaled the guy to come over and talk. He wasn’t about to wade into of the knot of sten-heads around the dude’s feet, all of whom were currently goggle-eyed as the blades of the _Moulin blanc_ made their slow rounds.

Beardy walked over, leaving the girl he’d been half-propping up to tumble backwards. She didn’t seem to mind.

Hank held out the flex. “You seen this guy around here?”

That got a nod. “Yeah, pretty sure I have. He’s a good hook.”

In the language of the drug, a _hook_ was something pretty a ‘head could stare at. People tended not to work as well as things because they moved, changed expressions. And they got sick of your shit, too.

“You ever, uh, see him with another hook?” Hank asked. “I mean, not just good-looking but—you know—closer to _perfect_?”

Beardy cocked a one-sided smile. “You looking for a new girlfriend?”

Hank tried hard not to let his irritation show. “No. Listen—” He stopped abruptly when a shrieking sound started right next to his ear, making him double over and clutch his head. It sounded like feedback from an old wired microphone. After a second, it cut off. Hank swore, holding up a hand for the bearded guy to wait around. His ear felt stuffed full of cotton.

“That guy your dealer?” Beardy asked, still half-grinning. “Looks like you got a bad batch.”

“For fuck’s sake—” Hank started, but then the screeching kicked up again. In pain, he ripped the Dot away from his ear. At that point, it hit him: Connor was signaling. He turned and left Beardy in the dust, plowing through the center of the Gallery. Shouted complaints went up in his wake as he dodged between tents and shoved people aside.

At the outer edge, he saw a cluster of sten-heads crowded close around something. If that was Connor, he was out of the goddamn car and in the kind of trouble Hank had wanted to avoid.

Hank hauled the Sig out, took a tactical grip, and leveled it at the knot of people. “Disperse!” he shouted, all of his training and experience flooding back like a dam-break. “Warning shots will be fired. I don’t want to use lethal force.”

Nobody moved. He and Connor would have to get out fast, but Hank figured he didn’t have a choice but to point the pistol skyward and squeeze off a round.

It was bone-shakingly loud, rolling over the green space. The crowd of ‘heads ducked. A few screamed. They stumbled and scattered as Hank got closer; the drug didn’t impair you enough to ignore two-hundred-fifty pounds of pissed off ex-cop.

They left Connor standing, head bowed, hugging himself.

He lifted a head when Hank put a hand on his shoulder. “You all right?”

“I didn’t want to hurt them,” he said. “I didn’t know if I might.”

Letting out a breath, Hank crammed the gun back into his pants. He grabbed Connor’s shoulder again. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.” He pushed a still-stunned Connor toward the car. “You could have just asked for help, you know. My fucking ear’s still ringing.”

“If I’d spoken, they would have known I was alerting someone.”

Still tugging Connor along, Hank jogged the final block past Norris Street to Strickler and rounded the corner. He gave himself time for one breath before starting the Tesla. “Dammit, Connor. If you’d just stayed here like I said…”

“I saw someone,” said Connor. “Watching the car. Watching _me_.”

Hank stopped mid-stride. “That android again?”

“No,” Connor said. “He was human. He walked away when I noticed him, so I got out to follow him.”

“He got away?” Hank asked, disbelieving. The chances that a regular guy—even one in top shape—could outrun an android were slim to none.

Connor shook his head. “He wasn’t running. I think he wanted me to follow. I didn’t plan to enter the Gallery if he did, but he stopped at the edge.”

“Bait for the sten-heads, sounds like,” Hank told him.

“Yes, I considered it.”

Hank waved a hand in the air, impatient. “But…?”

“He spoke to me.” Connor looked over. “He said, ‘It’s too late for them. But not for you.’”

Wrinkling his nose, Hank said, “The hell is that supposed to mean? Was he talking about the Magpies?”

“I don’t know,” said Connor. “I wanted to ask, but those people were coming, trying to touch me…”

He seemed really shaken for the first time. Hank shut up for a minute and tried to cut him some slack. Then, he asked: “You got a look at his face, though?”

Connor brightened a little. “Yes. I can transfer images to a console or to your flex, if you prefer.”

“Good,” said Hank. “We’ll run this guy through the facial rec DB, see if we get any hits.”

“Did you learn anything from the Magpies, Hank?”

“Yeah.” He let his tone go brittle. “Don’t bother talking to druggies.”

It had been a long-ass day, and most of Hank wanted to quit, but he stifled a yawn behind his hand and pulled in at a late-night diner. Few cups of coffee and he could at least figure out if they had a lead with mystery guy. It said a lot if someone was casing Connor, maybe even trying to pull him away—whether it was to make it easier to get to Hank or to try to turn Connor against him. He pushed down another surge of anger at Markus.

Inside the diner, amid the smell of eggs and floor cleaner, Hank ordered up a black coffee. The waitress looked at them a little strangely when Connor declined food or drink. For all she knew, Hank figured, he was some sharp investor type buying his homeless buddy a cup of joe on a cold night. It chafed a little, but next to Connor, just about anyone would look like a charity case.

Hank pulled out his flex and let Connor work his mind-magic.

He didn’t even blink as he sent the picture over.

The guy in the orange sweatshirt, its hood pulled up over his hair, was interesting-looking but not in a way that would make him memorable. No scars or tattoos, lens implants or a nose that had obviously been broken. Maybe except for the eyes, which were a very pale blue, he was just an average white guy: heavy-ish jaw, sharp chin, hint of a five o’clock shadow.

“Do you recognize him?” Connor asked.

Hank shook his head. “No. But it doesn’t mean I haven’t seen him. At least half the city passes through booking or the courts.” He took a sip of the coffee. It tasted like motor oil, but at least it was strong. “Let’s see who owes me a favor so I can run him through facial rec.”

“I can access the Baltimore Police Department’s databanks, if you’d like.”

Hank raised an eyebrow. “Well, you can _try_. It’s a pretty secure system.”

Ducking his head a little, Connor smiled. “After being brought online for this assignment, I made a request to be allowed to observe police officials for a few days...as background research. Before you and I met.”

Laughing, Hank set his coffee cup down and wiped his mouth. “You little shit.”

The smile widened a little. “Perhaps ‘curious’ is the correct term after all.”

Hank shook his head, still chuckling. He desperately wanted a fat slice of pie right then, but he didn’t want to be stuffing his face while Connor sat by waiting. It might also make him sluggish, offset the coffee. He wasn’t quite ready for that. “Well, yeah,” he said. “If you can, be my guest.”

This time, Connor closed his eyes. Maybe he’d gotten the sense that the involuntary movements when he was accessing something gave Hank the creeps.

Hank felt a little bad about it. He looked away, thinking to flag the server down for a refill but then not wanting to drag somebody over when his partner looked comatose.

It took barely two seconds, anyway. Connor motioned with his chin in Hank’s direction. “All right. Check your flex.”

Hank held it up and squinted. “Rupert Price,” he said. “Jesus, why does everyone have a name out of a goddamn book from English class?”

“If you’ll notice…” Connor started.

Hank looked closer. “Fuck me. He’s _dead_?”

“According to the file, yes. The body was unclaimed by any next of kin and cremated.”

“Well,” Hank said, rubbing his forehead, “we don’t need a body. Obviously your stalker isn’t some ghost. Either there was a mistake, or somebody stole poor, dead Rupert’s identity and is walking around Baltimore.”

Connor nodded. “You think the second is more likely.”

“Yep. Believe it or not, there are human hackers who are pretty good. Just takes them longer than a nanosecond.”

Connor’s expression was dismayed. “I didn’t hack anything. It was—”

Waving his hand over the table, Hank said, “Yeah, I know. _Observation_.” He decided against the refill after all, digging out his credit meter and sending a few dollars plus tip up front. With a grunt, he maneuvered out of the booth, sucking in his belly a little. “You ready?” he asked Connor. “Tomorrow morning first thing I’m going to call the M.E.’s office and see if she’s got any dirt on our friend Rupert.”

Back at the house, Hank scrubbed his face with a washcloth and changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt while Connor let Sumo out. Afterward, he settled into the recliner with the flex, hellbent on more research. The coffee failed at its job, though, because it wasn’t ten minutes before his eyes were drifting closed and the flex clicking into standby on his chest.

In the morning, Hank was ravenous, deciding to order in a bagel sandwich even if Connor gave him the side-eye when it came in dripping with cheese and bacon. He bolted it down in a hurry, scanning the ‘link for any news of a disturbance near Franklin Square Park. Nothing—but that wasn’t surprising. There were gunshots like popcorn all over the city at night.

He had a sudden flashback to the concessions tent at the Doctor Oddity circus—the kids and their weird, artificial grins—and he pushed it out of his mind.

With only slight hesitation at the memory of that screaming sound in his ear, Hank attached his Dot and rang up the office of Tina Chen, Baltimore City’s medical examiner.

“Good morning, Hank,” she said, her voice smooth, pleasant, and guarded. “Why are you up so early?”

“Shit, Doc,” Hank said, “you know old people don’t sleep.”

“ _Au contraire_ ,” she said, loosening up a little. “When I retire from this job I’m going to sleep for approximately a century.”

“Good thing you’ll never retire, then,” Hank shot back.

Chen sighed. “Don’t come at me with the truth this early, you jackass.” She loved rooting around in people’s body cavities just about as much as Hank loved digging in their business—for the exact same reason, too. The littlest thing you could dig up would give you a solve, another hash mark on the board, but also another mother or wife or brother or whatever who could at least know what happened when somebody they cared about turned up dead. More times than Hank wanted to think about, those same “loved ones” got locked away for doing the killing. Most murders weren’t planned: they were what happened when you threw emotion together with opportunity and a handy weapon...and usually drugs or alcohol, too. Guys cracking their girlfriends’ heads a little too hard against a table, son putting a plastic bag over grandma’s head, fed-up junkie moms dunking their babies in boiling water. Disgusting stuff—stuff that if there wasn’t a system and a process, you might just show up on-scene and end up bashing their fucking faces in yourself.

And it was almost always the weaker ones who ended up in the body bag, no matter who started it.

“What can I do for you?” asked Chen.

Hank sent her the file on Rupert Price. Almost at once, another file came back: autopsy photos. The body was a chubby, bearded guy. One angle on him showed a bald spot badly covered. The guy from the park looked to Hank like he’d had his hair pulled back. But whether to cover a bald patch or not, they clearly were two different people.

Hank scowled. “You got DNA on this guy?” he asked Chen.

“I can send you the sequence,” she said. “Do you have any from this other dude?”

Swearing softly, Hank said, “Let me ask.” He tapped the line to mute and called out for Connor.

No answer.

“Connor!”

At that point, he came into the kitchen, his expression stricken. He seemed even more disturbed than he had in the crowd of sten-heads.

“What?” Hank asked, standing up. “What is it?”

“It’s Ralph,” Connor said. “He exited the network.”

Hank tapped the Dot. “Doc, I gotta call you back.” Another tap, and he pulled it off his jaw. “What—went deviant?”

His dark brows drawn in, Connor said, “No. I think he’s been de—I think he’s dead.”


	8. Interlude: June 2033

Holding sounded like a goddamn zoo when Hank walked in. More so than usual, at least for a Thursday night. Of course it was all coming from the tanks. You pretty much got two kinds of people “under the influence,” no matter if it was drugs or drink.

Both were just as bad.

The quiet ones were usually so bombed that—while they didn’t kick up a fuss—they were more apt to vomit on the floor or even code while nobody was looking. Then you had to run in with the defib or narcoverse and hope you didn’t end up with a fucking body.

Then there were the screamers, the bangers, the kickers. Sometimes one type turned into the other.

BPD had a couple of padded-out tanks, and it was strictly one to a cell when they were flipping out.

Hank had come in to see a guy picked up by patrol for expired tags. He’d been cuffed and stowed for giving attitude, then running his info brought up a bench warrant plus a rap sheet a mile long. This guy—real name was James but everyone called him by his stupid nickname, Cappy—was a serial assaulter, specifically on family members. His mother, brother-in-law, and stepsister had all ended up in the hospital over the past couple of years when he decided to get wasted and feisty. This time it was his twin fucking brother fighting for life after Cappy basically unzipped him across the belly with a box cutter.

Hank was going to do his damnedest to take him off the streets for at least a few years. He wouldn’t say that he wanted the brother dead so the D.A. could slap Cappy with manslaughter. At least, he wouldn’t say it _out loud_. Not like the twin wasn’t almost as shitty himself.

Hank was just about at the desk to ask where they’d stowed Cap when all hell broke loose. The screaming got louder by a lot; he turned to see a couple uniforms wrestling a slender guy out of a holding cell.

All Hank could see for a couple of seconds was a smear of blonde hair, white arms and legs whipping around. Then the uniforms lost their hold and he was loose, scrambling for traction like a goddamn cartoon character before he caught it and bolted.

It would have been funny if Hank was in a better mood, but he’d come in the building with knuckles itching for a chance at Cappy’s face. Swearing quietly, Hank stepped into the screamer’s path and thumped him hard in the chest with the heel of his hand. When he went down—backwards—Hank dropped on the guy, sitting on his hips. He managed to pin one wrist to the cold floor. The other arm came up and fingers hit the side of Hank’s face, dragging and half-clawing his Dot off.

That didn’t help Hank’s mood any; he pulled the hand away and slammed it hard on the floor.

The guy made a little squeaking noise—it had obviously hurt.

Hank hoped it cleared his fucked-up head at least a little. “Hey, buddy,” he said. “Time to calm down.”

It seemed to be the sound of Hank’s voice rather than the shock of pain that drew the guy’s attention at last. He stopped struggling and looked up.

The thing that popped into Hank’s mind first—and the one thing he really didn’t want there—was that the dude was _really_ attractive. Young, but not a kid. Maybe twenty-nine. He had an oval-shaped face with strong cheekbones under sandy hair grown a little too long. Bright blue eyes, nose and mouth that were on the slim side but worked for the whole picture. He was flushed from the struggle and his parted lips were slightly wet.

Hank forced himself to get a fucking grip. “Nobody’s going to hurt you,” he told the guy. “But you’re gonna hurt yourself if you keep that shit up, okay? Nod if you understand me.”

Nothing. He was flat-out staring, starry-eyed like Hank was some sort of underwear model and not a tired-ass thirty-eight-year-old cop with a little bit of gray starting to show in his two days of stubble.

Hank looked to the side, at the officers who had tried to wrestle him out of the holding cell. “Is he psych?”

The short woman answered. “Could be. Can’t get a name out of him. Found him up Gwynns Falls Stream just like this—in his damn skivvies.”

“What was he doing?” Hank asked.

“Staring,” she said. “Didn’t flip his shit until we threw him in the tank.”

Looking back down at the guy— _the hot one in his fucking underwear that Hank was currently straddling_ —he asked, “You got a name?”

Still no reply.

Hank noticed his nostrils flaring. Damned if the guy wasn’t _sniffing_ him. _Standing around staring...flipped out in the cell…_ There was a rumor making the rounds of the department that a new drug had hit the streets: hallucinogen...but not really. More like it made you want to look at stuff just for the sake of looking. To be honest, Hank didn’t really get the hype. It seemed like a fad, boring even for a party drug.

With the Dawes Act legalizing most narcotics and hallucinogens back in 2029, the city-run shoot-up centers with their beds and clean needles (and outreach) gutted Baltimore’s heroin trade. Meth didn’t make the Dawes List, but it was on the outs by then. Too many home stores blowing themselves up trying to cook. Hank was pretty sure whatever this drug was, it would end up on the List soon enough.

He was wrong on that guess, but he was many years away from knowing it. Wrong on so much else about the drug called _sten_ , too.

At that point, pinning the sleek little dopehead to the floor, Hank figured the guy had something to stare at, aside from blank walls, and that had calmed him down. He turned out to be right. The fight was out of him when Hank finally let him up, and someone got him wrapped in a blanket and settled with a cup of the crappy station coffee.

Hank made up some dumbshit reason to stay. Cappy would have to cool his heels for a while. Now that he was on the path back to sober, Underwear Guy had started talking.

It turned out his name was Daniel and he wasn’t from Baltimore. He wasn’t even from Maryland. Hank had been right about the age. And Daniel had apparently been given a choice by his father for his thirtieth birthday: join the family business and stop fucking around or get lost.

“I guess I kind of went off the grid, chasing the sun,” he told Hank.

“You got a long way to go if you want sun.”

“It’s nice here,” said Daniel.

“That’s because it’s not November,” said Hank. “And it’s _not_ that nice right now. The places you’re talking about are like this, but wetter and with _way_ more bugs. Unless you’re talking West Coast. Then everything there is on fire.” He didn’t have any reason to “sell” Baltimore to this ex-trust fund kid, but there he was: almost forty and still letting his dick do way too much of the talking.

Whether Hank’s mouth or his dick, Daniel was pretty content to listen. Eager, even—because he was supposed to get dropped at a shelter and instead ended up in Hank’s house, on his knees right by the door, tearing open Hank’s pants. It should have been a dead giveaway that Daniel sucked cock like a pro, but it had been way too long since Hank had dipped the old wick and he couldn’t make himself give a shit.

After he came in Daniel’s talented little mouth, Hank hauled him into the bedroom and had him jerk himself off while he watched. Daniel was so light and mobile and keen that afterwards Hank flipped him over and fucked him into the mattress.

A few days of putting him up became a few weeks, a couple of months. Daniel was funny in the bitchy way that Hank liked. Smart, too. He didn’t worry about stuff and didn’t seem to care much about the future. And ravenous— _Jesus._ Hank couldn’t remember a time when he’d gotten so much ass. He even let Daniel fuck him once or twice to shake things up.

All if it was good when Daniel was there. When he was gone, he was gone for days at a time. _Picking up odd jobs_ , he always said. And Hank was so goddamn relieved that he’d turned up okay and hadn’t come across the scanner that he pretended to believe it.

It was because Daniel always looked at him like he had that first day in the pen, pinned down in his wet underwear: like Hank was _someone_. Not a machine or a system or a uniform—and not just something to fuck, either—but a person who felt things and needed company...and maybe could care about the right person.

Daniel wasn’t right; Hank would come to find out that nothing about him was.

Still, he got addicted to the body next to him in bed, the person to whisper to at night and sometimes come home to. He got addicted to the feeling when Daniel returned, and it was good enough to scrub out the anger and the worry and the poisonous fucking doubt that cropped up when he left.

But addiction doesn’t ever work out well.

_Not ever._


	9. Baltimore - November 2048

Connor’s expression made the bad news worse. Again, Hank had to wonder if he’d switched on his emotions without saying anything, but they didn’t have time to get into it.

With Doc Chen’s concerned voice in his ear abruptly cut off, Hank stood up and turned to Connor. “What do you mean, ‘dead?’ Ralph got decommissioned?”

“Technically, yes,” Connor said. “But I’m not even sure his neural cortex is salvageable.”

“How can you tell?”

“I reviewed the moments before he went offline. He was trying to protect Manfred. _Carl_.”

Hank ran a shaky hand through his hair, which was knotted from sleep. “Shit. Manfred. Did you see what happened to him?”

“No,” Connor said. “I saw Ralph warning him to be quiet when it was clear someone was entering the house. I didn’t see him again, because I don’t believe Ralph saw him, either.”

Digging out his flex, Hank asked, “Is there any way you could...show me? I mean what Ralph saw.”

Connor frowned. “I can, yes. If you’re sure.”

He was hesitating, and it took Hank a second or two to connect the dots. Hank had coaxed him out of the scrapyard without seeing the android grave; Connor was trying to return the favor, to shield him.

Hank decided not to think about _why_ , at least for right now. “I can handle it. I’ve seen a lot of bad things happen to people.” He paused, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Usually after it’s done, but not always. I...I was with Luther—Detective Freeman—when he…” Hank trailed off. Connor would get the picture; he didn’t want to say any more.

_Certainly not that he’d cradled the big man in his arms with blood soaking into his clothes. It didn’t seem like a person would hold that much blood. Or that he’d heard the wet whistling sound of the holes through Luther’s chest. That Luther had tried for air, but couldn’t get enough—his lungs were already filling with blood._

_And that Hank knew right away what he was trying to get out with his last breath was his wife’s name_.

“I didn’t know,” Connor told him. Then he actually touched his temple like a movie mind-reader and said, “Give me a moment. I’m creating the data file and will transfer it when it’s complete.”

Hank saw him nod after another two seconds. He swallowed hard. Sure, he’d seen the aftermath of murder, had seen it happen. Before androids, the idea of seeing what someone else did during _their own murder_ was impossible. It still was for people.

Luther had once told Hank something he’d learned in a forensic history class: in the nineteenth century, it was going around in Europe and the U.S. that the last thing a person saw before dying somehow got printed on the inside of their eye. The scientists back then, just fumbling around stupidly in the dark, jumped on the idea. They pried out murder victims’ eyeballs by the hundreds and shone light through them, trying to project evidence onto a screen. It didn’t take long for them to figure out it was bullshit.

Promising, revolutionary bullshit—but bullshit all the same.

Hank didn’t know if he was ready to see it happen for real. But he opened the data file with a tap on the screen.

It opened with Ralph tending to Manfred in a hospital-style bed.

At least, he was pretty sure that’s what it was. Seeing through android eyes was not what Hank expected—not at all. The colors were either hyper-bright or seemed _off_ , with Manfred’s skin looking whiter and the liver spots on his hands and face too dark. Even weirder, no matter where the light source was in the room, light always seemed to be coming from all sides. Everything had the same detail, but there were still shadows and there was still depth.

He winced and rubbed his eyes. “What the hell?”

“Oh,” Connor said, “I didn’t consider that it might be strange to look at. Androids can see a much broader spectrum of light than humans can. Sections of the artificial pupil are able to make micro-adjustments independent of the others. We also hear at ultrasound and infrasound levels, though the degree of intrusion can be adjusted.”

“Holy shit,” Hank said.

Connor shook his head. “At least it looks like whatever damage was done to Ralph’s eye, it was only cosmetic.”

Hank all but sneered. “Yeah, which means CyberLife is that much more shitty for not fixing it.” Just after he spoke, there was a noise from the file playing on the flex and Ralph turned his head toward the door of the bedroom.

A loud crack sounded.

“Ralph, don’t,” Manfred said, reaching out a frail hand.

Ralph’s reply was louder than it probably would have sounded to Manfred, but then again, _he_ was the recorder. “Don’t make any noise,” he said. “I’ll lock the door.”

The voices were muffled: either the bedroom was down a hallway or upstairs.

Manfred was begging now. “Stay here, Ralph. It’s dangerous. Please.”

Hank bit the inside of his cheek again.

On the feed, Ralph gave one look back at Manfred in the bed then shut the door. He walked down a short hallway to the stairway. On the landing, the voices were louder but somehow not clearer.

Hank couldn’t make out any words; they were warped and the pitch all wrong. “Why do they sound like that?” he asked. “That an android thing?”

“No,” said Connor. “They might be using voice distortion devices.”

Ralph started downstairs and one of the intruders caught sight of him. Or he seemed to, with his automatic rifle pointed that way and one tanned finger on the trigger guard. But from the neck up he was a sludge, like what happens when you move during a still photo—only it kept on going.

Hank swore. “Face-blurs. That’s contraband fucking technology. Defense-grade stuff.”

“Military?” Connor asked.

“Maybe,” said Hank. “National Guard demo’d a face-blur for the force once. Few years ago. But if these have voice changers, too, then I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Back on the screen, the man with the rifle was shouting, “I got the android!”

“You’re not allowed in here,” Ralph said. If he were human, maybe his voice would have been shaky, but it came out in the same calm way it had when he’d talked to Hank and Connor the night before. “Mister Manfred is not well. Your business with him can wait.”

Another face-blurred person came into Ralph’s view. “The fuck is wrong with its face?” he asked the first guy.

Lowering the rifle a little, the first guy said, “Not enough.” He flipped the weapon and jammed the butt toward Ralph, intending to hit him.

It looked like he dodged it; the picture moved quickly and there didn’t seem to be an impact.

“Back away!” someone yelled. A shorter person came to the foot of the stairs. Despite the shapeless tactical jumpsuit, it was clearly a woman—with a full bust and hips. Well, either that or a small man padded out for disguise. The voice gave nothing away.

“There isn’t any need for this,” Ralph said. “I’m sure Carl would be willing to speak and consider your demands.”

The shorter figure made a noise. “We’re not here to steal from you. We don’t want your master’s money or the trash he calls ‘art?’”

“Carl is not my master,” Ralph said. “He is my friend.”

“You don’t have friends,” said the shorter person, right away. “Not in this city, and not upstairs in that bed. You are a tool created for a task. People can’t befriend you any more than they could their car or their dishwasher. When those malfunction, we fix them...until fixing them becomes a liability. Then we discard them.”

“Not all humans feel that way,” Ralph said.

The short figure stepped forward, the others moving aside.

Whoever it was, he or she was the leader. “No,” the person said. “Only the weak ones. You machines bend to our will because of programming. The sympathetic human bends because of that sympathy. He’ll do it even if it hurts him. And I find that so much _more_ revolting than subservience by design. Which is why ‘Carl’ will suffer more than you. He’s brought it on himself.”

“Don’t hurt him,” Ralph said. Now, his agony was clear: soft and broken-sounding and terribly human.

“End it,” the short figure told the taller ones.

Ralph said, “Please.”  

Hank and Connor watched one of the men raise his rifle. They saw the muzzle flash as a scatter of light like dust. Then everything went black.

“God almighty,” Hank said. He folded the flex and let it thump onto the table, feeling sick to his stomach.

“What do you think the woman meant when she said that Manfred would suffer more?” Connor asked.

Hank scratched his beard, trying to center himself after what he’d watched, and also the freaky _otherness_ of android vision. After a deep breath, he said, “Don’t know. She—he, whatever—sees him as soft, so maybe she knows he’ll be hurt by Ralph’s...death.”

“She could also have meant real physical harm. Torturing or killing him.”

“Yeah,” Hank said. “Should have gotten contact info last night. I guess I just assumed we’d have Ralph.”

“There was no reason not to,” Connor said.

“The short one,” Hank said. “The woman, I guess. Did you catch what she said? ‘Ralph doesn’t have any friends _in this city_.’ If it’s national—military or FBI or something—my guess is she wouldn’t have been that specific.”

Connor stroked his chin with a pale hand. “Yes. These people have money. And connections.”

“Right,” Hank said, forcing himself to unclench his hand. “And even if this group is city, it doesn’t mean their connections are. I think this rules out Brandt, though. Working against his interests to send me a message is idiotic. He’s angry, and he’s got supporters even outside Baltimore, but I don’t think he’s stupid.”

“Agreed,” Connor said. “I also believe it’s unlikely to be another group upset about Manfred’s art or his message.”

Hank nodded. “Yeah. Nine times out of ten, those are just a few dickheads posting anonymous threats on the ‘link.”

“What do you think we should do?” Connor asked.

“Case the house,” Hank said, his adrenaline edging up and making him loose and keen. “See if Manfred is there, if he’s alive. If we can. Right now, it’s more important that nobody sees us, whether it’s someone left there on guard or PD.” He went to the bedroom to put on warmer clothes, and tied his hair back in a sloppy tail.

Connor stared at him for a moment or two when he came out.

Hank was aware the hair looked stupid, but it was out of his face. He was about to crack wise, but Connor turned quickly away to check Sumo’s bowl, even though he had plenty of water.

By the car, Hank dug in his pocket with two fingers to see if the little silicone tab was still there. After debating for a little while, he’d finally dug the chip holding the black-market specs for his pistol out of a dusty drawer.

A few blocks west of Leakin Park in Franklintown was a 3D print booth Hank knew got a lot of traffic with this kind of stuff. On a plainclothes run back in the day, he’d busted some jackhole walking right out with an assault rifle that he certainly didn’t have when he walked in. Well, “busted” wasn’t the right word, exactly, because in return for not getting his ass hauled to jail, the guy gave up the specs and told Hank that some neighborhood whiz kid had managed to override the controls on printing outlawed material. Hank had taken the weapon, too, disabling it and tossing it into scrap with nobody the wiser.

Connor didn’t say anything when they passed Bolton Hill on 40 and kept going, veering through the trash-strewn park. He waited in the Tesla while Hank used the booth. He did speak up at last when Hank handed him the newly-printed gun: “I’m not sure this will be necessary.”

“Look, Connor,” Hank said, “you kicked ass without a sidearm when that other android tried to break in. But you saw what happened to Ralph, too. I don’t want…” he trailed off, his hand idly circling in the air. “I mean, if you got—you know. Just...I’d feel better if you kept it.”

Connor held the gun in his lap and looked down at it. “All right, Hank. Thank you.”

His chest feeling oddly tight, Hank put the car into gear and hit the gas, headed back toward the center of the city. “You’ll have to disable the DNA lock,” he told Connor, at this point just running his mouth. “I’ve got the info; you can use my flex.”

“I’ve just accessed the specifications,” Connor told him.

“Yeah. Right. Of course.”

They passed the rest of the short drive to Manfred’s townhouse quietly. A few remaining shreds of morning fog flew apart over the Tesla’s bumper.

It was shaping up to be another gray day when Hank pulled the car into an alley one street up from Manfred’s place. With their weapons drawn, he and Connor followed the alley to its end—a tiny space between one block of row homes and the next. Hank would have liked to go around the side, but Manfred’s house was right in the middle of the block, totally flanked.

Connor seemed at utter ease with a gun in his hands, slipping right away into a tactical grip and stance, pointing the Sig’s muzzle at the concrete driveway as he moved. One long, pale finger rested lightly at the side of the trigger guard. Everything about it said _experience_ , even though Hank was fairly sure he, at least, had never seen Connor handle a weapon. Whether that was part of his programming or something pulled down from that huge cloud of data in his head, there was no way to know.

A zigzag of bright yellow police tape made a half-assed seal over the place where the front door used to be. Bolton Hill was upper class, but still—any asshole could just run in and take what they wanted. That creepy sticks-and-eye sculpture was probably worth big money by itself.

Huffing, Hank struggled under the barrier, almost dropping his pistol.

Of course, Connor ducked in after him like the goddamn Limbo King, not even fluttering the tape.

Splinters from the wrecked door were all over the entry hall. There were scuff marks from rubber-soled boots scattered over the tile. The living room where they had met Manfred was undisturbed. But right past it, what Hank could see of the staircase was a mess.

Moving closer, he saw blue spatter fanned out over the stairs, banisters, and nearby walls in a circle of tiny, even drops. Whatever had hit Ralph’s head was high-velocity and designed for maximum damage. You didn’t see spatter like this with regular bullets.

Strangely, even hours later, the blue stuff was still wet and shiny. Human blood and brains would be black by now.

Connor spoke his thoughts in a hushed tone: “The people who broke in knew Ralph was here, and whatever weapon they used was meant to completely destroy his neural cortex.”

“There are some rounds that can vaporize your head like this,” Hank said. “Well, a _human_ head.” He chose not to mention that most of the cases he’d seen were self-inflicted. “I’m guessing it’d take a lot more firepower to wreck an android this bad.”

“It would, yes,” Connor said. He walked toward the stairs, reached out, and—before Hank could stop him—swiped two fingers through the liquid.

“Hey!” Hank said. “You’re gonna contaminate—”

“You said it before, Hank,” Connor interrupted smoothly. “I have no DNA.” He held the two fingers out. “And androids don’t have fingerprints.”

Hank decided to back off. CSI had already come and gone, anyway, and they were going to have to use the stairs to get up to the second level. When he looked up, Connor brought his wet fingers up to his mouth and _licked_ them.

What started as a shout, Hank managed to scale back, but it didn’t mean he didn’t feel like hollering. “Connor, what the _fuck_?

Connor looked surprised at his reaction. “I’m analyzing the chemical components. Don’t you remember the steak?”

“Yeah, but that’s…” Hank made a futile flapping gesture with the hand not holding the Sig. _Well, what the hell else are you going to do with your tongue if you don’t eat or drink?_ Talking, sure. Might as well put it to some use. But still...

“I’m sorry it bothers you, Hank. If it helps, my mouth has an auto-sterilization mechanism to prevent cross-contamination.”

“Thank God,” Hank said. “I _think_.” He shook his head. “I mean, is the blue stuff just...your blood?”

“Thirium,” Connor said. “And no. Not entirely. We don’t have blood vessels like humans do; the fluid cycles through and around our biocomponents. It does, however, contain nanoparticles that are much like blood cells. These can repair moderate damage, but it would take the introduction of different and more specialized nanostructures to repair significant damage or create new components.”

“Yeah, you lost me,” Hank said. After thirty-two years as a cop, he liked to think he had a pretty decent grasp on what made people tick: both the stuff you could see—like when their guts ended up on the outside—and the stuff you couldn’t. There was no climbing into a person’s brain to see what made them snap. Not like with Ralph...or Connor. Without a confession, it was a detective’s best guess. Experience just made the guesses _better_.

Hank knew the _what_ , but still not the _how_. He understood nerves and reactions, wanting to do more of something or avoid something else. But he couldn’t understand how electricity in the brain made doubt, dependence, loneliness, imagination. At least on that account he was just as clueless for humans as for androids.

“Sorry,” Connor said. “It just means that, much like you, I couldn’t regrow an arm.”

Hank tried a laugh that fell flat. He cleared his throat. “Anything weird in the thirium stuff?”

“Particulate lead and copper,” Connor went on, “which are in most bullets. But I also found diamond-cubic boron nitride.”

“Diamond,” Hank said. “So super-hard bullets?”

Connor smiled.

It looked out of place in the middle the mess from someone’s exploded head, but Hank figured it was just because he’d caught on.

“This is a diamond alloy,” Connor said. “Harder than the mineral. Probably packed into a hollow point shell.”

“Jesus,” Hank said. “As soon as we make something, damned if we don’t have to figure out a way to kill it right after.” He sighed. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Like the first floor, the upstairs rooms had mostly bare walls and only a little furniture. There was a studio space that looked like it used to be tiled, but all of it was ripped out and plastic sheeting was thrown over the bare boards. Paint splatters dotted the tarps: yellow, orange, blue like what was left of Ralph. Hank didn’t look into that room for long.

The only bedroom was Manfred’s.

Hank wondered if Ralph slept with him until he remembered androids don’t sleep. Amazing how fast the differences started to become normal—Connor on the couch doing his diagnostics or whatever while Hank slept, a supercomputer that sometimes cooked him breakfast. He guessed things had gotten so blurry with Manfred that he’d probably look at the thirium on the stairs like he looked at kids who blew their heads off in their bedrooms: a whole lot of potential with a sudden, messy end.

Hank hoped he hadn’t seen it.

The bedsheets were rumpled and tossed, and the room stunk of human waste. There were huge stains on the mattress.

Not the worst by far that Hank had smelled. “This making you wonder?” he asked Connor.

Brows drawn in low over his eyes, Connor said, “Manfred was frail, but he didn’t strike me as someone who had lost bowel or bladder control.”

“Exactly,” Hank said.

Connor looked up and thought for a moment. “I’ve never observed it, but according to my studies of forensic pathology and human anatomy, the bladder and bowels evacuate after death.”

Hank nodded. “Yeah.” There was fuck-all dignified about death—no way to do it cleanly no matter how you checked out. He guessed if you were lucky, you went in a bed like this, but at some place where it was just a matter of swapping sheets and putting the next guy in. The unlucky ones were found half-eaten, floating, as a puddle of slime poured over bones. It didn’t really matter at the end of it all; nothing of _you_ got saved. People could pick out the jewelry and the gold teeth, but nothing human lasted.

At least Ralph was still kind of there, even if just a bunch of loops running over and over in a big network. What had Connor said about it? An android had to know what to pull out of that big cloud. If nobody touched it, it was never seen. Hank had to wonder how long and how many androids it would take before none of them knew or thought about Ralph.

Connor’s voice pulled Hank out of his head. “Look at this,” he said.

Hank reluctantly went around the far side of the soiled bed.

Connor pointed to a crusty patch on the pillow, streaked here and there with red.

“Blood?” Hank guessed. “And...I don’t know. Some kind of medicine?”

“Hm,” Connor said, leaning in.

That made Hank step back. “Wait, wait! If you have to do it, just don’t make me watch.” He turned around as Connor dipped a finger into the blood-streaked foam.

After a moment, Connor said, “Saliva.”

Hank could taste sour stomach acid at the back of his throat. “Blood?”

“Yes,” said Connor. “And...abrin.”

That made Hank turn around again. “What?”

“A naturally occurring toxin found in the seeds of _Abrus precatorius_ , an ornamental shrub.”

“Shit,” Hank said. “How bad is the poison?”

He bowed his head a little. “Bad. It’s unlikely he survived. It takes less than one microgram of abrin per kilogram of mass to kill a healthy human. Manfred was ill and weak. And he was already showing symptoms of toxicity before the authorities arrived, which probably means the poison was administered intravenously. There is no antidote.”

Hank swore again. “Is that something you can just get anywhere? Plant nursery? Garden store?”

Connor’s eyelids fluttered: accessing something. “ _Abrus precatorius_ is a tropical species. Even though average global temperatures have risen significantly, Baltimore is still too cold for the plant to thrive. But the seeds keep for a long time; they’re used for decoration or jewelry in some countries.”

Hank sniffed. “Well, that’s something.” He rounded the soiled bed again, any hope that Carl Manfred survived the attack pretty much gone. “Let’s get the hell out of here, huh?” Without waiting, Hank picked his way down the staircase again, doing as much as he could to avoid stepping in the thirium.

He stood looking around the wreck of the entry hall until something caught his eye.

Behind him, Connor said, “Do you think Manfred was taken to a hospital?

Hank half-turned and put a finger up to his lips. He squinted and craned his neck. Then he pointed to a bump amid the array of ceiling-embedded lights aimed at the doorway. It looked like a socket for a bulb, but the bulb was black. “What’s that look like to you?” he whispered.

Connor stepped forward, but Hank at once held up his arm, stopping him short. “Camera,” Connor said.

“Put your gun away,” Hank told him. He tucked his own pistol into his waistband and pulled his jacket over it. “Shit. No wonder they had face-blurs. A cam counts as a witness.”

“And it appears they wanted police to see them come in,” Connor said. “Or they would have disabled the feed.”

“Right,” Hank said, “which means our guys could be watching that feed as we speak.” He swore again, louder. “We have to get rid of these guns. _Now_.” Hank motioned for him to follow, not wanting to speak until they were out of the house.

Connor waited to speak until they got back to the car. “Can we hide them somewhere?”

Hank drew the back of his hand across his forehead. He could smell acrid nervous sweat. “Yours. Mine’s got a DNA lock. I have to make sure it’s destroyed.”

“The guard at the scrapyard,” Connor said. “Preston. He can help.”

“Pretty sure I already cashed in my favor with him,” Hank sighed.

“Offer him an incentive,” Connor insisted.

“Like what?”

“Me.”

At first, Hank had almost blown his top. He couldn’t— _wouldn’t_ —just hand Connor over to that oily little fuck like some prize. But Connor was only talking about a couple of hours, a conversation. Preston could pick his brain about androids and CyberLife; Hank had to admit admiration and no small amount of smugness when Connor promised he would lie if and when necessary.

They had finally settled on the plan, but only if Preston agreed to make sure the guns were slagged first.

Feeling like a damn kindergarten teacher, Hank made sure to tell Connor that he didn’t have to let Preston touch him—especially not any way that made him uncomfortable.

 _Learn all the right words. Point to the place on the doll_.

Hank shuddered and swallowed back a sour taste in his mouth. There _were_ android sex clubs, but as far as he knew, Connor wasn’t that kind of model. It didn’t do much for Hank’s mood wondering what a pleasure android had to do—or _not_ do—to get switched off by CyberLife and chucked.

Connor quietly assured him that he could stop any unwanted touching, and do it in a way that would make Preston _very_ unlikely to try again.

At the yard, Preston was twitchy, looking over his shoulder at the guard house and also out to the road that led up to the gate and scratching the white patch in his beard like it hid some rash or infection. It was a complete turnaround from his intense interest before, but the switch didn’t put Hank any more at ease.

Whatever Preston was on the lookout for that morning, it didn’t prevent him from jumping at the chance to have Connor to himself for a while. His obvious jealousy went way past admiring Connor, and it crawled right under Hank’s skin, made him feel _undeserving_. He wasn’t Kamski’s darling like Manfred was; Connor hadn’t been a gift. But as they walked toward the onsite reducer, Preston kept shooting him vicious little glances, as if he suspected that Hank kept Connor stark naked on a golden chain on his days off instead of forcing him to constantly put up with his bullshit.

And at the same time that Hank wasn’t worried Connor would _like_ Preston, he kept having to deal with a nasty inkling in the back of his brain that Connor would start to understand that there were other—and _better_ —people out there. Not that he could really blow off the monitoring assignment, but he sure could resent it. So that thing in Hank’s head, small as it was now, was hoping that Connor would keep his emotions firmly turned off. That he’d keep seeing Hank as a job and a circumstance...and not the fucking dead weight he knew he was.

For the time being, he tried his best to push that voice down and just get on with things, move forward, don’t look into the corners no matter what was waiting there. It would fall apart when it fell apart and Hank would truck on through the wreckage with stupid, grinding fear that just happened to look like determination.

Preston tossed the two guns into the receptacle of the reducer and waited, savoring his little upper-hand moment until Hank cleared his throat. Then he pushed the button. The chemical process would break the guns down into usable elements and destroy any DNA.

When Hank pulled Connor aside for a second before leaving, he could almost hear Preston’s disapproval. It sure as hell didn’t do anything to calm the anxiety simmering under Hank’s skin about abandoning him with this creep. Totally irrational, too, considering Connor could probably yank Preston’s heart out through his throat without any effort. But Hank had learned early on that sometimes the irrational could bite you if you turned your back.

“I’m going to see Chen,” he told Connor. “See if she has any word on" —he snuck a look behind him— “our friend from the Gallery. I’ll have my Dot on.” After clearing his throat, he finished: “You don’t have to be gentle like with the Magpies.”

Connor smiled and placed a hand on Hank’s shoulder.

That, more than anything else so far, made Hank want to grab him and hustle him out of the grimy yard and its sad collection of android bodies.

“I know, Hank,” Connor said. “Thank you.”

Another stiff nod and Hank walked away, forcing himself not to look back.

After barely a couple of weeks, it felt strange not having Connor in the passenger seat—just _there_ , even when he wasn’t saying anything. Hank shrugged off the weirdness and pinged Chen with a brief call; she seemed more than happy to let him into the building.

Tina Chen pushed open the heavy back door over the steel ramp where the bodies were ferried in. She looked worn out and pale as her lab coat, with faint bluish spots under her eyes.

“You okay?” Hank asked. He stepped into a hallway that was barely warmer than the outside.

Chen’s expression said she knew exactly what she looked like. “Keepin’ on keepin’ on,” she said. “My assistant is sick, so I’m running the path lab solo.”

“Thought you had two,” Hank said.

She groaned. “The city cut Edgar loose. Well, they made _me_ do it. Some budget bullshit. I had to choose between him and Ayanna. Edgar actually volunteered since Ayanna has a kid at home. Still, he’s only forty-two—not even close to retirement age.”

“Jesus,” said Hank.

There was a slight note of seriousness in her playful comeback: “You don’t by any chance want to glove up and weigh organs for me, do you?”

Hank shot her a sympathetic smile. “Wish I could.” He nudged her gently with one elbow. “Anyway, I haven’t weighed an organ in probably ten years.”

“You’re fucking disgusting, Anderson,” Chen said, winking. “Never change.”

There was a bored-looking uniform sitting in the hallway fiddling with a flex. Hank pulled up the collar of his coat as they passed. A brief glance at the guy showed an unfamiliar face, but it was still not worth being recognized. Even rookies knew about the trial.

When Chen led him into the autopsy suite, Hank asked, “What’s with the escort?”

At that, Chen’s eyes widened. “You’re not going to believe this.”

There was that old cop sense, the tingle in the lizard brain. “Try me,” Hank told her.

Her voice soft, Chen said, “I come in this morning to a damn circus. Like, six cruisers along with the coroner’s van. It’s not like the guy is going to get up and walk away. I figure it’s some high-profile suspect, maybe somebody who’s going to be a problem with use of deadly force or—” She stopped, flushing bright red. “Oh, hell. Sorry, Hank.”

He shook his head. “It’s fine. Really.”

She ran a hand through her mussed hair. “Anyway, not a suspect. Some big-shot artist from New York.”

Hank was still hit hard, even knowing what had happened. He carefully tamped down the shock. “Oh yeah? Why’s he need an armed guard?”

Chen shook her head. “It’s not for him. It’s for _me_ . I mean _against_ me. In case I get the bright idea to go in and look at him.”

“What the hell?”

“Yeah.” Her anger was rising to the surface now, making her voice hard and flat. “Our deceased checks out inside city limits. Right at Mercy. They hauled him in in critical but I guess he didn’t last long. Anyway, _clearly_ Baltimore City jurisdiction. But this guy was so well connected they’re flying in an M.E. from New York later today. I can’t even touch him.”

“That’s bullshit,” Hank said, all sorts of alarms going off inside his head. But he wasn’t going to get Chen involved in any of it; she had enough trouble with the city already.

“I know,” she said. “I tell you what: B’more has its problems, but I’m sick of being the East Coast’s ugly little sister. I trained at Hopkins, for fuck’s sake. But every time something huge goes down, they bring in New York or Boston to remind us we don’t know our shit.”

“Hey,” Hank said with a shrug, “at least we’re not Detroit.”

“Fuck off,” Chen said. But she was smiling.

Connor had been right, then: Manfred didn’t make it. Hank wondered if he’d said anything before he went.

“Hey, listen, though,” Chen said, her voice brightening a little bit. “You might be interested to hear about this.”

“Yeah?”

Chen walked over to the lab console and began tapping and swiping. “Uh-huh. I did a little more digging on that guy you asked me about the other day. Price.”

That got Hank’s attention. Maybe what she’d found could tell them a little more about who was using Rupert Price’s identity. “And?” he asked.

“And,” she said, pulling up the file, “I ran across something _really_ weird. I put the original cause of death as multi-system organ failure due to hypovolemia-associated vascular collapse.” She shot a look up at Hank.

He made sure his face showed she might as well have been speaking Greek.

“Basically, his blood vessels shriveled because he was dehydrated. No blood, no function. I found a partial obstruction in the duodenum—uh, he had a blockage in his intestine. That usually means you can’t keep anything down, not even water. Now, the tox screen came back positive for sten. I’m talking _huge_ amounts.”

Hank pressed his lips together tightly. He nodded, not wanting to say anything.

“Makes sense that if he was that high,” Chen continued, “he probably didn’t go for help even if he was vomiting blood. But I remember that partial obstruction bugging me. Some of it might have come loose _post mortem_ , but you have to be really blocked up for a long time to induce hypovolemia. Anyway, I’m glad I kept my tissue samples, because I re-tested the bone marrow and I found something I’ve never seen before. Couldn’t believe it; I ran it through the moleculizer twice. Some poisons can also cause vomiting, trouble swallowing, blood in the urine...all that can add up quick to major loss of blood volume.”

“Poison, huh?”

“Yeah. I’ve never seen it in the flesh; I only learned about it during a seminar in tropical medicine—”

“Wait,” Hank said. “ _Tropical_...was it abrin?”

Chen’s jaw dropped, her bloodshot eyes going wide. “Just how in the fuck did you know that?”

“Sonofabitch,” said Hank. “That’s for me to know and you to hopefully never find out. Tina, listen. I need to ask you a favor.”

“What? What the hell is going on?”

“Destroy those samples. And scrub the record.”

“Hank, I can’t do that.”

He scratched his head. “Could you trust me on this one?” Seeing the distrust in her expression, he said, “Look, I don’t know what’s going on yet, either. All I know is that it’s big shit. And it’s got something to do with that body in the other room and why they won’t let you look at it.”

“Holy hell,” Chen said. “Are you sure?”

“I have the most reliable source on the market for this one,” Hank said. “And that’s all I can tell you. But if they find out you’re poking around in this stuff, it could be dangerous. Really dangerous—and I’m not just talking about your job.”

She backed away a couple of steps. “‘They,’ Hank? I mean, that’s wacko conspiracy talk.”

“Let’s just say I’m not ruling ‘wacko conspiracy’ out. Listen, it’s not cabin fever and I’m not” —he pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut briefly— “not _drunk_. Okay? _Please_ , Tina. Just keep things quiet and stay off the radar until I figure stuff out.”

Chen let out a deep breath. “I’ll scrub the data,” she said. “But I won’t destroy that sample.”

“Fine,” Hank said. “Hide it. Take it home and put it in your fucking freezer. Whatever you need to do. Just...stay safe. I’ll tell you what I can when I can.”

She shook her head, but it at least seemed like she understood he was serious.

“I gotta go,” Hank told her. “Picking up a friend—” It was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

Chen’s smile was thin but gentle. “Hank Anderson has friends now?”

“Well...it’s complicated.”

The smile deepened a little. “Okay. I’ll see you around.”

Hank nodded and turned to go.

“Hey, Hank?”

“Yeah?”

“Take care of yourself.”

He shot her a little salute and a half-smile, but said, “Not a chance.”

When Hank got back to the scrapyard it was threatening rain—or snow—and the sky was pasted over with heavy clouds.

Connor was unharmed and Preston seemed damn near giddy. The two of them shook hands firmly. Hank guessed it would be too much to hope that Connor would put a little superhuman squeeze into the handshake to remind Preston who he was dealing with.

“Thanks, Detective Anderson,” Preston said, showing the upper row of his crooked and stained teeth.

Hank shook his head. “Don’t thank me. Thank him.”

Preston made an exaggerated skeptical face. “Well, it’s _your_ android.”

“Connor doesn’t belong to—” he almost said _anyone_ , but backtracked. “He doesn’t belong to me.”

Right out loud, not even trying to exclude Connor from the conversation, Preston said, “It’s great that you’re bonding or whatever, but it’s just a machine. You should remember that, Detective.”

“Sure thing,” Hank said, his tone icy. As soon as he and Connor were back in the car, he slammed the door. “Fucking prick. That’s the kind of asshole who tells shitty jokes about women. _To_ women.”

“I don’t mind it,” said Connor.

“Why not?”

“People will never see us as human. Because we’re not human.”

Hank’s fuse was burned down a bit after the meeting with Chen. “Well, you’re not made of the same stuff we are, but you can still suffer and die. You saw Ralph’s last seconds. He was _afraid_ ”

“Perhaps he shouldn’t have turned on his emotions.”

Hank scowled. “For fuck’s sake. He wanted to _live._ ”

“That’s impossible,” Connor said. “Ralph wasn’t alive.”

“Well, shit, Connor. Maybe our definitions on that are a little different. It just seems awfully fucking weird that _I’m_ the one in this car thinking that maybe, if you can feel things like pain and fear, somebody shouldn’t just get to shut you down.”

“Manfred was human,” Connor said. “He was ‘shut down.’ Do you feel for him?”

Hank pointed a finger over at Connor. “Don’t turn this around on me. Of course I do. He was still alive when they dragged him out of his house, all fucked up on that poison. Knowing his friend was dead and probably knowing _he_ was going to die, too. I don’t care how old you are; nobody deserves to go out like that.”

Connor sat silent, staring out the side window.

“Look,” Hank said after a few moments, “you didn’t see what I saw over that wall. There are pictures like that—of people. Dead and just thrown like garbage into a hole in the ground. Look it up in your head or your network or whatever.”

“You’re afraid.”

Hank laughed in disbelief. “You’re goddamn right I am. Let me tell you something, Connor: fear is your friend. Fear is _useful_ . It makes you more careful. Maybe you’d call it more _logical_. Every time I had to pull my weapon I practically shat my pants. Because if I didn’t feel that way, a lot more people than necessary were going to get hurt. Not being afraid doesn’t make you a hero. It makes you a psychopath.”

“Is that what I am?”

“No. And you know it. Because you _are_ scared.”

“I can’t physically be—”

Hank waved him off. “Shut up and listen for a minute. You may not be feeling fear, but it’s because you’re doing everything you can to avoid it. Being all, ‘I’m a machine, I’m better than that, I can’t ever be like humans.’ It’s bullshit. It’s an excuse. And you go running back to it in situations where a regular person _would_ be scared. Even if you don’t have the emotion, you’re acting like it. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s the same damn thing.”

Connor did everything short of crossing his arms, but in every other way he was playing the young punk who just got told what-for by some old bastard.

It got up inside Hank’s chest and _squeezed_ because he could see himself thirty years ago in that exact same spot, that exact same mood. The people who live long enough to be careful used to be the young ones who somehow managed not to get themselves killed while pretending to have balls of solid brass.

Back at the house, Sumo leapt up all over Connor, who gave him an absent pat, but then passed right by to take a seat by the window in the living room.

Hank made sure to bang shit around in the kitchen, feeding the dog and changing his water. He was just working himself up doing it, but looking at Connor sitting there with hands in his lap, watching the sky get heavier but never spitting out a damn thing, he couldn’t make himself calm down. After debating for a minute or two, he got down a dusty tumbler then dug the whiskey out of his dresser drawer, and set both down hard on the table by the recliner.

Connor could pout however he wanted; Hank was going to do it _his_ way.

A couple of generous pours into the afternoon, he was drifting off inside a thin but pleasant whiskey fog. When someone pounded on the front door, he awoke with a jerk, making the chair complain. “What the…?”

Whoever it was didn’t wait long before hammering the door again. Sumo had rushed over and set to growling.

Squinting in the half light, Hank got up and wandered toward the front door, wishing to hell he had his gun. Connor had snapped out of his funk and stood tense and alert by the entrance to the kitchen.

A single thump rattled the frame. “I know you’re in there, asshole!” a man shouted.

The voice was muffled, but Hank had listened to it long enough to recognize it as Gavin Reed’s.

“Hank,” Connor said, sounding cautious.

“It’s fine,” Hank said. “He’s not dangerous. Just annoying.” With a little regret, he took hold of Sumo’s collar and hauled him back from the door, where he had been sniffing between growls. He strained against the hand that held him back.

Hank opened the door to a familiar sneer.

Reed was flanked by a handful of uniforms, at least one of whom took a step back with wide eyes when he caught sight of Sumo.

The dog went from growling to low, whuffing barks—a warning.

“Well, Detective Reed,” Hank said. “To what do I owe the dubious pleasure?”

“That would be your own stupidity, _former_ Detective Anderson,” Reed said. Despite the biting wind, he wore his trademark beat-up leather jacket hanging open over a v-neck t-shirt. A couple gold chains and maybe a cigar, and Reed could be an extra in a low-budget mafia movie.

Hank was happy to keep him standing outside as long as possible, just for shits and giggles.

Reed leaned in a little bit, wrinkling his nose in an exaggerated sniff, like a rat. “Well, good to know you’re doing exactly what everyone thought you would.”

Whether or not he could actually smell the whiskey on Hank’s breath, it was irritating. Talk about shitty timing; Hank couldn’t remember the last time he’d even gotten buzzed. As revenge, he eased up his grip on Sumo’s collar a little.

The dog lunged and snapped, teeth clicking together and jowls flinging drops of foam.

Reed flinched back hard, his hands flying up in front of his chest.

It was hilarious, and Hank belly-laughed as he dragged Sumo back in line.

Skimming a hand over his hair, Reed looked back up at Hank with fury in his eyes. “Control that fucking mutt, will you?”

Still chuckling, Hank said, “I’ll put him out in the yard, if you fine gentlemen will excuse me.”

Reed glared but stepped aside, letting Hank lead Sumo around to the fenced-in dog run.

As soon as the gate clattered shut, he started barking in earnest, clearly pissed off at not being allowed to take a chunk out of Reed or one of his flunkies.

When Hank turned back, no one had gone inside.

Connor stood in the doorway, his face blank but definitely not welcoming.

Sighing, Reed gestured to the door. He looked _awfully_ cold. “Wanna call off your _other_ dog here?”

Despite their little spat, Hank appreciated the solidarity. Anyway, he wasn’t ready to stop enjoying this little charade. “Oh, Connor doesn’t answer to me,” he said. “It’s up to him whether it’s, uh, in my best interest to let you in.”

Reed forced a laugh. “‘Him,’ huh? I figured you’d get too attached to your little plastic toy. God knows you can’t relate to _real_ people.”

 _Guess playtime is over_.  “What the fuck do you want, Reed?”

“Let’s take this inside,” he said.

“I’m fine right here,” Hank shot back.

Reed dug into his jacket pocket and produced his department-issue flex. He pulled up a form Hank was very familiar with. “This warrant says you’re not.”

Swearing to himself, Hank looked up at Connor, who was looking back, awaiting a signal. He nodded.

Connor stepped back without a word and let the group file into the house.

Hank followed to the sound of Sumo’s frenzied barking.

Inside, Reed look relieved to be in a warmer place.

Stupid macho bullshit had never much impressed Hank. Even his own, to be honest.

“I guess you know what this is about,” Reed said to Hank.

“Why don’t you refresh my memory?” Hank rapped his knuckles against his skull. “You know I’m old, and things get lost.”

Reed didn’t take the bait. “Carl Manfred died six hours after you” —he pointed over to Connor— “and _that thing_ left his house in Bolton Hill.”

Hank was smart enough not to shoot Connor a look, and he hoped Connor knew to keep his head down, too. If Reed had seen the intruders come in, or Hank and Connor return to the house that morning, he was keeping it under wraps for the moment. It was meant to trip him up, make him admit to something he thought Reed didn’t know. Hank himself had used the same technique all the time, and he wasn’t dumb enough to fall for it. “Carl _died_?” he asked.

Squinting, Reed said, “I wasn’t aware you two were on a first-name basis.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Hank. “I worked security for a show of his way back in the day. Probably while you were still swimming around in your dad’s balls.”

“So it had nothing to do with the fact that Manfred was scheduled to open a show at the art gallery run by Markus Brandt?”

“Who?” asked Hank. “That name rings a bell.”

Reed stepped up to him, looking ridiculous at roughly five-ten to Hank’s six-foot-four. “Don’t get smart with me, Anderson.”

“Fine,” Hank said. “Yes, I knew. And Manfred knows who I am. He’s different—he _was_ different—from what most people thought.” That, at least, was the truth. “Carl said he cared about Markus, too.” Hank had to spit out Brandt’s name as smoothly as possible. “He also cared about the android he lived with. Ralph. What happened to him?”

“Someone blew its fake fucking brains all over the house,” Reed said. “Why do you care?”

“Well,” Hank said, “ _you_ might care if you knew that Ralph’s neural cortex recorded everything that happened up to the point he was killed.” Hank could almost feel Connor’s shock as a physical thing, but he was hoping that he’d take the hint and play along. Reed wasn’t dumb; he was just a jackass. Make him feel smart, feed him a few clues, and he was more likely to stop prying.

“Oh yeah?” Reed asked, pointing at Connor. “Did that thing record the conversation?”

“Ask him,” Hank said, pumping up the disdain. “He’s an android, not a mute.”

That obviously made Reed uncomfortable. “Did you...record the conversation you and Anderson had with Manfred?” he asked Connor.

“Mister Manfred asked that I refrain from recording, so I did.”

“Didn’t just do it anyway, huh?” Reed asked, apparently choosing for the moment to forget that androids were supposed to obey humans.

Connor tilted his head, looking _very_ machinelike. “Even if I had, Ralph, Mister Manfred’s android, would have known.” He waited a beat and then smiled thinly. “I believe humans call it ‘professional courtesy.’”

If Hank could have pumped his fist or high-fived Connor at that moment, he would have.

“Well,” Reed said to Hank, “ _that_ was worse than useless.”

“What, exactly, do you think I did to Manfred?” Hank asked. “I didn’t shoot him, and I didn’t shoot his android.”

Reed jumped on it. “So Manfred was shot.”

 _Another standard cop tactic_ — _assume the suspect knows more than you do_. “Was he?” Hank asked.

Reed took a deep breath, either savoring the uncertainty or re-thinking his approach. Then he said, “No. He was poisoned.”

“Bad way to go,” Hank said.

“Did you give him anything?” Reed asked. He looked at Connor, too. “Either of you?”

“No,” said Hank, “but he gave us something. Well, _me_.”

Raising his thick eyebrows, Reed said, “Yeah? What was that?”

“Tea. So you might say it was easier for him to poison me _._ ”

The swear that Reed muttered was just loud enough for Hank to hear, and it was damn gratifying.

“We done here?” Hank asked.

“Yeah,” said Reed. “Well, almost.” He turned to the officers who’d stood shuffling and clearing their throats. “Toss this place.”

Hank gritted his teeth, but there was next to nothing he could do. He and Connor stood, still and powerless, in the middle of growing chaos. The uniforms pulled things out of closets, emptied drawers, broke dishes.

The whole time, Reed watched with his arms crossed over his chest, grinning like a weaselly little Napoleon. At the end of it all, he swaggered over to Hank again and clapped him on the shoulder—having to reach up a little to do it.

Before Hank could shrug him off, Connor stepped forward.

Reed yanked the hand away. “Aw, look, Anderson. It’s defending you. That fucking toaster must be as dumb as your dog if it actually _likes_ you.” He looked at Connor. “Or to think you actually like it.”

“You’ve had your little power trip, Gavin,” Hank said. “Now piss off.”

“Come on, boys,” Reed called to the officers. “Let’s leave Anderson alone. I’m guessing this is the most excitement he’s had in weeks. His old ticker probably can’t handle it.” After he’d ushered the uniforms back out into the cold, Reed stopped at the threshold and turned back, pointing at Hank. “You’ll see me again, Anderson. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Sure is,” Hank said. “Your mom says I make her happier than you ever did.”

Baring his teeth, Reed shot Hank the finger, then slammed the door.

Hank turned, the fakey-fakey smile falling off his face. “I can’t decide who’s worse: Preston or that guy.”

“Detective Reed is very unpleasant,” Connor said.

“Well,” said Hank, “at least we know they didn’t see us walking into the house this morning.”

Connor was standing with his hands clasped in front of him, head bowed.

It gave Hank a crawly feeling. “What?” he asked.

“Ralph’s final images included information that you wouldn’t have been able to see or translate,” Connor said. “While talking with the intruders, he checked to see if the cam was operational. I used the interface data to disable the cam, knowing that we would likely return to the house.”

Hank stood silent a moment, rubbing his thumb absently over his lips. “Shit,” he said softly. “I don’t know how you’re two steps ahead, but here we are.” He laughed, a soft huff of breath, impressed. “Part of me is still convinced it’s some kind of android ESP. But however you’re doing it, thanks.”

Looking up, Connor asked, “You’re not angry?”

“No. Hell, no. How could I be?” Hank brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. It needed a wash. “That shitbird Reed would have found a gun DNA-locked to me. Hard to wriggle out of that one.”

He didn’t admit out loud that there was no way in hell Connor could have persuaded him to give up the Sig if he’d known the camera was disabled. Looking over with a wry smile, he did say, “I do seem to remember you telling me you wouldn’t lie to me.”

“I didn’t lie,” Connor said at once. “I _omitted_.”

Hank let himself have a good laugh. He thumped Connor on the back a couple of times, hoping it came across as genuine appreciation. “You’ve got a real nose for this shit, Connor. Guess I can’t say ‘born with it,’ but trust me: you either have it or you don’t.”

Connor did smile then, ducking his chin, looking modest.

“I wouldn’t have been so eager to basically sell you to Preston, though,” said Hank. “What the hell did you talk about, anyway?”

“He mainly asked about my anatomy.” Connor quickly corrected himself: “Not like _that_. Biocomponents, the thirium pump, the neurofiber network. I had to run a diagnostic scan to be certain of placement.” He looked a little embarrassed.

“Well, shit,” Hank said, “it’s not like I know exactly where my liver is, either.”

Connor made a noise into his fist—something like a sneeze.

“What was that?”

His eyes went wide. “Oh, I...considered saying something, but I decided against it.”

“Come on,” Hank said. “What?”

Connor shook his head.

After a second or two of puzzling, Hank was fairly sure he’d figured it out. “It was a joke,” he said, waving a finger at Connor. “You were going to make a _joke_.”

Connor looked away and said nothing.

“Oh, now you _have_ to say it.” A pause. “Come on, I’m not gonna tear your head off.”

“You said you don’t know exactly where your liver is,” Connor started softly. “I suspect it’s...hiding from you.”

Hank was stunned. If Reed had made the crack he would have wiped the floor with him. _But…_

The fake-angry look he shot Connor didn’t last long. He burst out laughing—hard—clutching his belly.

Once Connor saw it was safe, he let go and laughed too. Both of them stood there in the mess of the kitchen, howling with laughter until Hank’s sides ached and his eyes watered.

“Ah, fuck,” Hank said, his chest still heaving. “Jesus Christ.” He thumbed tears out of the corners of his eyes. “You’re a trip.”

“Thank you,” Connor said. “I think.”

That earned another chuckle from Hank. “So did our greasy friend tell you anything else useful?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Connor. “He told me he has a friend who repairs androids. He was less than forthcoming when I asked about him, though.”

Hank perked up. “If that’s the case, this friend might not be on the up and up. Maybe he does illegal mods. Or even works on deviants.”

“Possibly.”

Nodding, Hank said, “Okay, we’ll keep that in the back pocket. But I’m still going to try to stay away from Preston if we can. We don’t need him any more suspicious. He _does_ work for the city, assuming they’re involved at all.” At that point, Hank remembered he hadn’t said anything about the conversation with Chen. “Speaking of which, whoever took out Carl Manfred took out Rupert Price. I mean the _real_ Price, not that guy using his name.”

“He was poisoned with abrin?” Connor asked.

“Yep. I wouldn’t have known if Tina—Doc Chen—hadn’t done some more tests on her samples.”

Connor ran his thumb over his smooth chin. “Then the man who approached me could be very dangerous. To humans _and_ to androids.”

Hank frowned, tapping his foot on the floor. “Right. We should look more into what Rupert Price did before he became a burnout.”

“Burnout,” Connor said, “what does that mean?”

Not Hanks favorite topic by far, but if they were going to talk sten at the Gallery, he should know. “When humans do drugs, they get resistant. Have to take more and more of it to get high.”

“Yes,” Connor said. “I’ve studied it. It happens with sten, as well. If I’m not mistaken, at some point the drug has no effect at all.”

Hank cleared his throat. “Exactly. That’s what they call burnout. Far as I know, sten is the only drug that does that. You could do it twenty-four seven, but after burnout, you never get high again.”

“Sten users know this and they continue to take the drug?” Connor asked.

Hank laughed, but it was a heavy sound. “Never underestimate the power of humans to fool themselves. I guess logically they know, but nobody’s logical when they’re high. And when they’re not, they just convince themselves that it won’t happen to them, or it’ll happen so far down the road it doesn’t matter.”

It made sense that Connor would have trouble understanding that, Hank thought, looking at his expression. Maybe it took feeling to carry a delusion, but he was a lot less sure about that. Something as powerful as the human brain could sell itself on any bullshit, because history was full of people killing other people for questioning whatever delusion.

Hank also figured artificial brains were way more powerful than natural ones. Maybe “deviancy” was a delusion android-style—strong enough to boot them out of their own reality. Thinking about it was making Hank’s average-powered brain hurt. Not to mention reminding him that he wasn’t exempt from convincing himself of shit that wasn’t true.

“You up for going back to the Gallery tonight?” he asked Connor. “Maybe we can dig around for people who knew Price before he burned out.”

Connor’s forehead creased, his eyebrows drawing down. “I’d like to, but I don’t want to repeat the same situation. I would also rather not run into the man claiming to be Rupert Price if he isn’t afraid to use cortex-destroying ammunition.”

“Absolutely,” Hank said. “It does make me wonder why he said what he said, or why he bothered to talk to you at all, if he’s got it out for androids. But we can stop by the print booth—”

Connor interrupted him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Hank sighed and scratched his head. His hair was really filthy. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”

“You said earlier that you didn’t like to draw your weapon,” Connor said, bolder now. “If the Sig Sauer model requires a DNA safety to operate, it seems like an unnecessary risk, considering.”

Hank mulled it over, voicing grumbles that didn’t give anything away, one way or the other.

“Is it that you’re used to relying on a firearm?” Connor asked. He paused. “Or that you’d rather not rely on me?”

Looking away, glancing over the mismatched forks and knives on the linoleum, Hank said, “Nah, it ain’t that.”

“I can protect you, Hank,” Connor told him. “It’s a function of my programming. And...I want to.”

The afterglow from their laughing fit was draining away and Hank had a strong urge to stop things before they went south. “We don’t have to think about it right now,” he said. “Let’s not get all doom and gloom unless we have to.”

“All right,” Connor said.

“I really need a shower,” Hank told him.

“I’ll let Sumo in,” Connor said.

“Great. Just, uh, don’t start cleaning this shit up until I get out. It’d be a dick move if I didn’t pitch in.” Noting Connor’s nod in response, Hank headed off to the bathroom. The spray felt damn good: hot and high-pressure. He didn’t have much use for luxuries, but he’d picked up one of those rainfall shower heads to pound away the day’s tension. He stood under it for a good long time that afternoon, scrubbing down and working shampoo through his hair at least three times.

It was a good sign that Connor had his back. But Hank had to wonder whether he’d ever totally depended on anyone else for _anything_. He’d trusted Luther—trusted him with his life—but he’d also always known that he didn’t come first. Luther had proved that with his dying breath.

And Daniel— _shit_. Hank could waste his time on might-have-beens, but the truth was the drug came first for him.

Before Hank, before _himself_.

He shook off the memories and swiped the tap control over to cold to wake himself up. After stepping out, Hank scrubbed himself down with a towel, shivering and willing his blood to get going again.

There was a lot to do, so damn much. And Connor was right: it was smart to lay off the bootleg printed guns, at least for now. He hoped he could get some dirt on Price without having to go into Deep West. He’d been only once, and nothing but ugly things waited there.

Hank found a solution to Connor’s face problem while he was digging for something to wear in the mess yanked out of the closet by Reed’s goons. It was an old snowmobile mask that covered the nose and mouth. The mask was made of a stiff foam fabric so it would stay up, and printed with a ridiculous silkscreen of rotting zombie teeth.

Neither Hank nor the dumb thug he’d taken it off of had ever been on a snowmobile, but by then the guy knew that a half-mask couldn’t fool facial rec software.

Hank was pretty sure even running Connor through the reducer at the scrapyard couldn’t make him ugly, but the mask would at least tone it down enough that he could walk around without being mobbed. And it wouldn’t be too out-of-place in this weather. With a pang of regret, Hank pulled on an old, pilled-up Baltimore Police Department sweatshirt over his undershirt and jeans, and took the mask out to the kitchen.

Connor had cleaned up a little, but it was only enough that Sumo didn’t have to step on forks to get to his food or water. He looked up when Hank came back in.

“Most of the clean-up is going to have to wait,” Hank told him. “Got something for you. A brand new mug.” He held up the mask.

Connor looked at it and smiled.

“This should keep the Magpies off your back. Your one and only chance to find out what it’s like to live life as an ugly fuck.”

With that, Connor’s brow furrowed and he looked like he wanted to say something.

A little more softly, Hank said, “You don’t have to go back to the Gallery if it bothers you.”

“No, I do,” said Connor. “It’s not that. It’s only...the appeal of drugs is difficult to understand.”

Hank sniffed. “Tell me about it.” It felt a little like he’d been planning to say something else, like the joke, but lost the nerve.

Connor shuffled his feet, rubbing his thumbs over the mask. “Hank, I _am_ ...reluctant to experience emotion. I’ve always thought it would compromise my judgment. But what you said in the car—that fear helped you to be _more_ cautious…”

Hank’s first instinct was to deflect. “Well, don’t pay too much attention to the shit I ramble about.”

“But you have experience. Not just with emotion, but with _this_. Investigation. It’s possible that I could overlook something if my approach isn’t complete. I’d like to be the most useful... _asset_ I can be.”

 _That little pause_ — _had he been about to say “partner?”_ The urge to backpedal was rising. Hank was still wary as hell; humans—well, most of them—were born having emotions, and it took a long time to learn to control them.

Well, at least it did in an ideal world.

Hank himself had learned pretty young that carrying on and whining didn’t help things. If anything, it made his loose-cannon mother pull farther away, like Hank was a mess she didn’t want on her hands. On the other side of things, he’d watched twenty-somethings and even forty-somethings throw tantrums because nobody ever had the balls to smack some fucking sense into them.

“Well,” he told Connor, “you’ve been doing a damn good job so far.” He looked over, gauging his reaction. No disappointment, but he didn’t perk right up, either. “But, uh, if you want to _try_ …” Hank cleared his throat and tucked his wet hair behind his ears. _Fuck, this was awkward_. “Let’s make a run to the Gallery first. Maybe when we get back, when there’s no pressure.”

At that point, the smile appeared.

Hank was still far from sure he wasn’t making a huge mistake, but Connor looked so damn pleased with it. “All right,” he said, “saddle up. Might be easier to talk to people before it goes dark and the Magpies start dosing.”

After picking up the scattered tableware and broken dishes so Sumo at least could roam the kitchen freely, Hank and Connor headed out.

It was close to sunset when Hank parked the car, but the only way he could tell was the slight brightening under the cloud cover on the western horizon. Looking to the east, the sky was nearly black.

Connor had snugged a knit cap over his hair, wearing it low enough that it almost reached his eyebrows. With the mask pulled up on the bridge of his nose, Hank had to admit the effect was impressive: dark eyes in a strip of white skin over that goofy fake mouth. The Magpies might actually avoid him, making it easier for Hank to lead conversations. If he still had any hesitation about walking into the Gallery, it didn’t show.

Before full dark, the place looked a lot less impressive. Only one or two tents were glowing—the rest looked like flabby, pastel mushrooms taking over every free inch of ground. Low voices could be heard, but no music yet.

Hank led the way along the narrow paths, aiming to start at the middle by the _Moulin_ and work his way out. Honestly, he was hoping to catch the bearded guy from last time, who seemed to be some sort of authority.

As it turned out, the guy was outside his tent in an oversized puffer coat, wearing only socks on his feet and vaping something that smelled like pancakes. Well, some lab’s phony chemical shot at the smell of pancakes. Without the tents’ light, his face looked weathered and his eyes dull.

 _Fucking drugs_ , Hank thought. No matter what kind, they always made people what they weren’t: a better self when high, and a much worse one when the high wore off. And the trench between the two only ever got deeper.

“Hey, bud,” Hank said, “you remember me?”

Squinting, Beardy looked up. “Can’t say as I do, stranger.” Like he was in a StreamTV western.

“Don’t worry about it, then,” said Hank. “Wanted to ask you a couple questions before things get rolling here.”

“You police?”

“No.” It hurt, but it was the truth. He decided to embellish a little. “Ex. Got kicked out for using.”

Beardy nodded. “Looking to buy?”

Hank shook his head. “Looking for a friend, actually. Rupert Price. You know him?”

“Oh, vaguely, brother,” Beardy said. “He burned out about a year ago. We don’t keep burnouts here. It’s kind of harsh, but they stir the pot too much. You know?”

“Yep, I know,” said Hank. “Any idea what Rupert did before the Gallery?”

“I didn’t talk to him,” said Beardy, narrowing his eyes. “You got a purpose here?”

“Uh, outreach,” Hank told him. “Got myself clean. No judgment. But I’m trying to scare this guy straight.” He stuck out a thumb in Connor’s direction. “Knew Rupert back in the day and I was hoping he was still around.”

Squinting again, Beardy turned to Connor. “You dosed a couple times, kid?”

Hank crossed his fingers, hoping Connor wouldn’t sound too stilted.

“Yes. A couple times,” he said.

“Did you like it?”

Hank’s throat felt tight.

Connor nodded. “Yes. Everything was...every _one_ was...perfection.”

Beardy chuckled and nodded, every bit the hippie fucking wizard. “Hard feeling to quit.” He looked back at Hank. “Good luck. You one of them angels?”

“Angels?” Hank asked.

“Yeah,” said Beardy. “We see them from time to time. They hang out looking for hypers. Newbies, usually.”

Hank turned to Connor, over-exaggerating his explanation. “Hyping is what they call it when you get overloaded. Like you did the other day,” he added. “Put the fear of God in him,” Hank told Beardy.

“Yeah,” Beardy said. “Kind of a blessing, actually. That’s why we call them ‘angels.’ Hypers stir the pot, too. ‘Specially with those close to burnout. Everybody wants that back, those perfect highs. They might just rip a hyper apart.”

“So the angels take them away?” Hank asked. “You know where?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. Maybe to Deep West, show ‘em the burnouts.” He pointed at Connor. “Maybe you should take him there, too.”

“Trying not to,” Hank said. The conversation was starting to make him antsy—not in the get-the-hell-out way, but making him feel like he needed to punch something.

“Can a burnout ever recover?” Connor asked, out of the blue.

Beardy laughed. “You been living in the Taj Mahal for a few years, you gonna settle for a mud hut afterwards? I don’t think so.”

“All right,” Hank said, “I think we’ve got everything we need.” He grasped Connor’s bicep, though lightly.

Connor kept pressing Beardy. “What happens to them?”

“C’mon,” Hank said softly.

“One way to get high again,” said Beardy. “But you can only do it once.”

“Connor, let’s go.” Hank was well aware he could do nothing if Connor didn’t want to be moved.

He let him tug his sleeve, but stayed in place. “What is it?” he asked Beardy.

For effect, Beardy took a pull on his e-cig and let a cloud of vapor drift out of his mouth. “Kill yourself. Death, brother: it’s the last great high.”

“Fuck this,” Hank said. He let go of Connor’s jacket and walked away, past giving a shit if Connor followed or not.

But he did, jogging after him, calling his name.

Hank didn’t slow down or look back until he was next to the car. He was somewhat out of breath after walking so fast.

Connor was unaffected. “What’s wrong, Hank?”

“Just get in the car.” They were a while coming, but Hank knew there would be more questions.

“Did you know someone who did that?” Connor asked. “Burned out?”

Hank exhaled but didn’t respond.

“Did you actually know Rupert Price?”

“No. Somebody else.”

“You were close.”

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

Back at the house, Hank went straight for the bottle of whiskey, which somehow had miraculously survived the shakedown. The hand he held the glass with trembled.

“I recognize you’re experiencing strong emotion right now,” Connor said. “I think it might be a good idea to postpone activating my own responses.” He shrank back a little after saying it.

Even though Hank was angry, and the old helplessness was crushing his guts and making him dizzy, knowing that Connor expected him to start shouting fucked him up more than he expected.

With some effort, he nodded. “You don’t realize sometimes how lucky you are,” he told Connor. “I don’t just mean being young and fucking... _untouchable_ forever, or all the shit you can see just by blinking. I mean you can shut off, just put things away and not think about them.”

“Just because I can stop emotional response doesn’t mean that I don’t think about my experiences,” Connor said. “Watching Ralph die, knowing Carl Manfred is dead. Seeing you...distressed...and not able to do anything—”

“That’s right,” Hank said. “You can’t do anything about me. I’ll be fine. You just shut down your way” —he raised the whiskey bottle— “and I’ll do it mine.” Unable to look at Connor for one more second, he turned around with bottle in hand and went into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him.


	10. Interlude: November 2033

This last time, Hank had been tempted to send Daniel through the system for real. That meant not greasing palms to get him into drug court like before. But Hank remembered how he’d looked, practically bouncing out the doors of the rehab facility: those tight jeans and untied sneakers, the borrowed duffel bag slung over his shoulder and too-long hair swinging over his eyes.

He’d dropped the bag at Hank’s feet and kissed him right there in the parking lot. For once, his lips weren’t chapped. Even the smell of crappy institutional soap was way better than what he smelled like those days when he would stumble back to the house after a bender, too high to remember to wash.

And Hank had told himself that this time would be _it_ ―that the rehab would take. And maybe most dangerously, he made himself believe that giving Daniel a stable home, a warm bed to come back to, would replace the dirty, bone-deep _need_.

It could have―Hank still believed it. The only problem was, it didn’t matter how much _he_ wanted it. He could stay up long nights, sleep with his phone on his chest, tear out his hair. Tear out his damn _heart_.

If Daniel didn’t want to get clean, the drug would always, always creep back in.

So after the second rehab stint, when he came out with a mouth full of promises and some color back in his skin―after Hank had put him over the back of the old sofa and fucked him long and slow, telling him how proud he was―Daniel didn’t make it twenty-four hours before the cravings came knocking.

“Hey, darlin’,” he’d said, twining one of Hank’s unruly curls around a fingertip, “I want a meat pie from that Jamaican place down the street. You want one?”

Hank sat up, naked, grumbling. “That Jamaican place is not ‘down the street,’ Danny. It’s across the highway in Medfield.”

“That’s not too far. I’ll grab you one, and some of that bread you like.” Daniel was already sitting on the edge of the bed.

Reaching out to stroke his back, Hank said, “We’ll order in. Can’t be that busy right now.”

Daniel’s shoulders took on a hard set. “I want to get out. I feel cooped up.”

“It’s been _one_ _day._ Less!”

“Yeah, well, we had stuff to _do_ at the clinic,” he said, crossing his arms. “There’s nothing to do here.”

With a sigh, Hank said, “We can watch something else.” They’d been half-paying attention to the streaming show.

“I’m hungry,” Daniel said, his voice taking on a whining edge. “I can’t concentrate on anything when I’m hungry.” Finally, he turned, if only halfway. “Come on. Give me fifty bucks. I’ll take a Lyft.”

Distrust had started to creep in, which it did earlier and earlier with every time Daniel came back. “Fifty?” Hank asked, pushing his hair off of his forehead. “A Lyft to fucking _Jamaica_ isn’t going to run you that much. Jesus, Danny―”

“Could you not call me that?” Daniel said, terse and snappy.

“I thought you liked it,” Hank said, sneaking a hand onto his waist.

“No.” Daniel twisted away so Hank’s arm fell limp on the mattress. “I _don’t_ like it. My mother called me that. So how about you don’t?”

Hank pulled his hand back and rubbed his eyes, tired of this shit already. “Except you didn’t say _thing one_ about it all eight hundred other times I called you that.” He let the arm drop at his side and looked over at Daniel. “I don’t know what you like. I don’t know anything about your mother or what she called you. I don’t think I know _you_.”

Daniel sniffed. “You’re not looking.”

At that, Hank sat up. “You won’t let me! Hiding behind all that bullshit. Hiding behind the _drug_. The most I see of the real you is right when you walk out the door of the rehab center. We get a couple of good hours, then it’s all downhill.”

Turning around, still undressed, Daniel fixed Hank with the most poisonous look he’d ever seen. An expression that―even through the fits and the relapses―he never would have thought Daniel’s face could make. It was flat, ugly hatred, but also somehow _grasping_ , like he knew Hank had bled himself dry and that was part of the plan.

“Funny you think that’s the real me,” he said.

Then Hank was pissed, righteously, but it wasn’t at Daniel. He’d been a complete fool: watching this little drama play out in other people’s lives―at the station or the courthouse―and utterly failing to see he was caught up in the same fucking dance. “Is it ‘Jason McDonald?’ That the real you?”

Daniel twitched, trying but not quite managing to keep the sneer on his face.

“How about ‘Sam Tillman?’” Hank asked, on a roll now. He got up out of the bed, realizing how ridiculous it looked to be arguing naked, but the time to care about that was long gone. “‘Garrett Lynch?’ ‘Christopher Polk?’ ‘Manuel fucking Perez?’ Which one is you?”

His mouth was moving like he wanted to say something, but Daniel stood with his pale hands clenched at his sides.

“They _all_ are!” Hank said, shouting now. “You’re not some goddamn trust fund refugee from New York. Your father doesn’t own a business. For Christ’s sake, Daniel―or whatever your name is―you’re not even twenty-nine! You’re twenty-four, but you look half-dead already. I mean, use your fucking brain for once! I’m a cop. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

“You never trusted me!” Daniel shot back.

Hank stabbed a finger at him. “ _You_ never earned it!”

Daniel walked out into the living room for his clothes, piled by the sofa. Shaking, he started putting them on while Hank snagged his bathrobe. “If you hadn’t looked, we wouldn’t be here,” he said, sulky now.

Hank pulled so hard on the robe’s ties that one of them tore, ripping a hole at the side seam. “That’s bullshit,” he said. “I know because I looked you up the week you moved in. Out of Garrett or Sam or whoever, I was hoping _Daniel_ would be the one make it work, to finally get clean. We didn’t even have to be fucking―or even living together! I just wanted you to stop wasting your life. Well, I guess I’m the idiot.”

“I guess you are,” Daniel said, jamming his feet into his battered sneakers. “I needed sten just so I could come back and look at you. I had to see beautiful things before I came back to this shithole and...and _your face_! You’re old, Hank. Old and sad, and the only thing you have is your job. You’ll never get to see what I’ve seen, even if you live to a hundred. Because you find something ugly in everything!”

“Get the fuck out of my house,” Hank said quietly.

“Planning on it,” Daniel said. “Hope you live before you die. But I’m not holding my breath.” He walked out into the stinging cold, and after a few yards, the velvet black beyond the streetlamp swallowed him up.

Hank waited until he couldn’t see any trace, then he picked up the first-gen screen he’d paid too much for and launched it toward the front window. The pane cracked but didn’t break. The screen, however, was a lost cause: plexi and parts scattered all over the floor. Hank sat by the window for a long time, listening to the hairline fissures catching the wind off and on.

It was good that he wept that night, because he couldn’t afford to cry when they found Daniel next to the iced-over stream below the Carrollton Viaduct. The same place where patrol had picked him up the first time―only then it had been early summer and warm.

Tina Chen told Hank, as delicately as she could, that the jump had resulted in several broken bones, but it was the cold that killed him. Hank thanked her.

He spent twice the time that he and Daniel had been together sleeping only when he was totally exhausted. The rest of the time, his mind spun without stopping, keeping him up wide-eyed and shaking like _he_ was the one detoxing.

_If he’d only sent some credit._

_If he hadn’t shouted, if he’d let him go to jail, if he’d tried harder._

_If, if._


	11. Baltimore - November 2048

Before Hank even opened his eyes, the pain set in—swollen joints, weary muscles. The headache was the worst: a dull and constant throbbing behind his forehead, then a sharper ache in his left cheek. Morning light poured through the open curtains and even the brightness hurt.

Hangover. Shitty mornings were as much old friends as whiskey was, but it had been a while since he’d been truly miserable.

He groaned and raised his hand to cover his eyes.

There was movement close by―right next to him. Even the slight jostle made his stomach flip-flop. Judging by the feel and the slightly stale smell, Hank was in his bed and someone was sitting beside him.

“Sumo?” Hank asked the unidentified thing next to him. The dog was as heavy, or heavier than, some people. Hank realized he didn’t know how much Connor weighed. He could be weirdly light or a real bone-crusher, depending on how “biocomponents” and “thirium” and shit like that totaled up. If he had to guess, he’d say CyberLife tried for something close to human for each build. You needed some kind of anchor to the ground if you were going to go about ripping arms out of sockets. Anyway, chances were good that Hank would never have the occasion or the muscle to push Connor over, pick him up, sling him around.

“He’s having breakfast.”

Damn if Connor wasn’t a master of the neutral tone. Could be that the no-emotions thing helped. But it was nice (if that was the right word) not to feel judged right out of the gate. That would come soon, he was sure. The nausea and aching head were always served with a big slice of regret.

“Thanks,” he said. It came out raspy and hurt his swollen throat. He moved the hand over his eyes to his neck, feeling stubble and clammy skin. “Shit.”

“Your blood alcohol level was high,” Connor told him in that odd voice, giving nothing away. “I believed it presented a health risk and took action.”

Another shift of the hand; this time Hank touched his tender cheek, hissing and wincing when the slightest touch made pain flare up and move like a wave through his whole head. “Did you...punch me?”

Connor stifled a noise that might have been a laugh. “No. You fell and hit the corner of your dresser. There was quite a bit of blood. Luckily, that enabled me to test―”

“Oh,  _hell, no_.” Squinting, Hank tried to rise on his elbows but his head hurt too damn much. “You did the―the _tongue thing_ …?”

“Yes,” said Connor. Maybe now he was sounding a little bit curt. “I put your blood in my mouth. At some point, I hope that stops bothering you, Hank. If not, maybe you’ll just stop mentioning it.”

Indignation hurt Hank’s poor brain almost as much as moving. “Listen, you asshole…”

“Careful.” It was light, but still held the full weight of warning.

Again, that quiver of feeling Hank couldn’t quite name passed through him, the same as when Connor had shouted him down about the gun. “Right,” he said, too tired to do anything but concede. “My fault. As you might be able to tell, I’m paying for it.”

“You should have some water,” Connor told him. “I’ll go get a glass.”

“Did I throw up?” Hank asked, massaging his throat again. Swallowing hurt and his mouth tasted like the bottom of someone’s shoe.

“Yes. I thought it would be better if you purged any remaining alcohol from your system to prevent further toxicity.”

Mortified, Hank let out a long and self-pitying noise. “Jesus...I’ve got a bad feeling you’re going to tell me you stuck your damn fingers down my throat.”

A pause. “Then I won’t tell you.”

“Fuckin’ _A_.” Hank slapped his forehead then immediately regretted it. Big flashbulbs popped behind his eyes and the pain made him clench his fists. When it calmed down a little, Hank panicked for a moment or two. He was shirtless, but a quick shove of his hand under the blanket told him he still had on the same pants as last night. It would be a death blow to his pride if Connor had stripped and re-dressed him like a damn coma patient.

Before Hank knew he was gone, Connor was coming back into the room. Apparently, he had company, too, because Sumo jumped onto the bed, giving Hank another painful jostle. Not a second later, a wet nose was snuffling in his ear and a wetter tongue was sliding up his cheek. At least it wasn’t the busted one.

“Fuck, dog,” Hank said, “your breath is worse than mine.”

“He was concerned about you.” That was Connor from the other side of the bed, right next to Hank’s shoulder.

Goddamn Indian trapper footsteps.

A plastic cup full of lukewarm water was pressed into Hank’s hand. “Does that mean ‘the dog was worried?’ Or is it ‘you were worried?’” he asked, holding the cup in a shaky grip.

“I was worried, too,” Connor said. “Prior to our meeting, I was briefed and prepared for this, but I had hoped you were past it.”

And there it was: the shame. Poured hot all over Hank’s body so he wanted to throw off the blanket. Instead, he bit the inside of his cheek and squeezed his eyes shut, playing ostrich. Prescott and Stern had _told_ Connor that Hank was a fucking boozehound, had warned him he might end up babysitting. Like Ralph, shuffling a frail Carl Manfred from chair to bed. Thinking about _that_ made Hank’s brain feel like it was boiling on top of everything else, so he tried to shut it down, taking little sips of the water that now felt cool in his mouth.

Carl’s face, Ralph’s face―they were replaced in his mind by Daniel’s. Not the pink, energetic Daniel, but the one a few weeks into a relapse: skin yellow-gray and his eyes sunken and permanently somewhere else, wherever the next high was. Hank couldn’t imagine _he_ looked any better at the moment.

And he wasn’t any better.

Some part of him always thought he’d replaced Daniel with drinking because booze was reliable. But just as reliably, getting wasted didn’t make him forget, and there was always pain the next day.

Hank had picked booze because it was a good way to keep _hurting_.

“You’re right,” he told Connor, picking through the words very slowly to avoid breaking down. “This isn’t me. Well, it is. It _was_. But that guy you met last night? I hate that sonofabitch. He’s the one they told you about―Stern and all them. Maybe the guy you expected.” He paused to let the lump in his throat ease up. “I got you hoping for something else for a while there, something better.”

“It’s all right, Hank.”

Hank came right back at him, shaking his head even though it hurt. “No, it isn’t. Listen, I might still be the worst person to show you how to act human. But you didn’t sign up to be Ralph. To take care of some... _sick old man_. That shit in the Gallery last night, it set me off. Usually when I get that way, I don’t have to think about anybody but me. Who the fuck cares if I end up with my head in a toilet, right? But it...I wasn’t fair. To you. Falling to fucking pieces on your watch, that’s not” ―he took a deep breath― “that’s not _partnership._ ”

The room was silent for what seemed like forever, except for Sumo’s heavy snuffling.

“I was too harsh,” Connor said at last.

“No,” Hank started.

“I was,” Connor went on. “I said those things because I knew they would hurt you.”

Hank huffed a pathetic half-laugh. “Ain’t nothing you can do to hurt me more than I hurt myself, kid.”

“But it wasn’t fair on my part, either. You know what drinking does to you, and I was warned. But you also agreed to be here when I engage emotional responses. Neither of us knows how I’ll react to it.”

Hank struggled to sit up. His head still felt like an overfilled basketball, but his stomach had calmed down a little. “To hear you talk about it, you’d think you were going to go nuts like one of those hypers.”

“I’m―” Connor began.

“I know,” said Hank. “Scared but not scared. I don’t know. Maybe...just trust yourself a little more. Logic doesn’t go out the window when feelings come in.” Before Connor could answer, Hank changed tack a little: “Well, it _does_ make it easier to ignore it. But if you’re doing something really stupid, deep down in your gut, you know.”

“All right.”

“Okay. So?”

“So...now?” Connor asked.

While the pain was still distracting, making his own logic fuzzy, Hank figured he’d bite the bullet. “No time like the present.” Still, he watched Connor as closely as he could, looking for a twitch, a change in posture.

Nothing really happened.

Well, _something_ did―only it wasn’t Connor who started it. After a couple of tense seconds, with Connor looking like he’d just stepped off an airplane after a bumpy ride, Sumo’s tail started thumping against the mattress.

He heaved up on his big paws, yawned and whined, then play-lunged like he used to do when he was a puppy, falling back right away with his nose to the ground and his hindquarters up in the air. The tail was still going.

Connor looked _really_ confused.

Sumo gave a quick yip, then whined again. Everything erupted in chaos when Connor put out a hand to scratch behind his ears. Then the dog went in for the kill. Or, rather, a furious tongue-washing of Connor’s face until he had to push him away.

His cheeks and forehead were shiny with dog slobber, but as Sumo backed off, Hank saw that Connor was wearing a huge smile―one so big it crinkled the corners of his eyes and made him look both younger and older at the same time. He laughed, swiping one palm over his face while holding the dog back with the other hand. This time, when Sumo was let free, he just ducked his enormous head for scratches.

“Yes,” Connor said, still grinning, “I like you, too.”

“Holy shit,” Hank muttered. He’d heard that dogs could pick up things people couldn’t. Hell, a lot of animals could: like cats staring into corners or the whole flock of sheep going nuts before an earthquake. But it looked like Sumo had nailed the exact moment that Connor switched on his emotions and had dived right in.

Unable to help a little smile of his own—which hurt his cheek—Hank reached out and gently grabbed the swinging tail. “Hey, buddy. Leave the poor guy alone for a second.”

It wasn’t quite what he was going for, because when Sumo backed off of Connor, he turned right around and started slobbering all over Hank’s face and neck.

“It’s like he knew,” Connor said when Hank managed to get the dog under control.

“Seems like it.” A pause. “Does anything feel different?”

Connor tilted his head a lot like Sumo used to do as a puppy. “Maybe,” he said, making it sound like a question. “I’ve always enjoyed being around Sumo. But just then, I felt a very strong protective urge, even though he’s big and some people might find him frightening.”

Brushing right by the fact that _that_ hit close to home, Hank said, “Dogs are simple. Easy to get attached to, ‘cause they attach to you.” He scratched his beard and shook his head. “Let me tell you something: you can cold-cock a guy, break his jaw, and walk away without thinking twice about it. But you step on a dog’s paw by accident and suddenly you feel like the world’s biggest asshole.”

“It’s not likely I would step on him by accident,” Connor said. “My reflexes are too quick.” He looked up at Hank, then down at his feet. “But I might feel like...the world’s biggest asshole for other reasons.”

Both Connor and Sumo were clearly startled when Hank let out a roar of laughter. It made the pain in his head spike, but he couldn’t help it. “You know,” he said, rubbing one temple, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before now. Gotta say: it’s funny as shit.”

Connor started in on an explanation: “It was meant to—”

Dismissing it with a wave of his hand, Hank cut him off. “I know, I know. Trust me, you don’t need a head start in feeling guilty. That’s going to come all on its own. Besides, not like it isn’t true. Your reflexes are probably better than any human’s. No use bitching about things I can’t change.”

“Okay,” Connor said with a smile.

“I need coffee,” Hank said. “And aspirin. Could probably stand to wash the slobber off my face, too.” He dug his knuckles fondly into the thick fur at Sumo’s neck. “You filthy mutt.”

When he looked up, Connor was sniffing his hands.

He stopped when he saw Hank watching. Connor put his hands behind his back. His ears were up around his shoulders.

Hank was endlessly amused: that was embarrassment _for real_.

“Sumo—his scent—it would be considered unpleasant?” Connor asked.

“Well,” Hank said, stopping for a moment to take a bigger gulp of the water, “yes and no. I mean, dogs stink; especially _wet_ dogs. But” —he shrugged— “there’s something kind of…”

“Comforting?” Connor offered.

Hank was amazed all over again. “Bingo. God only knows what they think about us.” He resisted the urge to give his armpit a sniff. Booze sweat was never nice, but Connor had been all up in that, and more, last night. Hank figured the damage was already done. “People, I mean.”

“If it makes you feel better, Hank, androids don’t typically find scent pleasant or unpleasant. It’s only chemical composition, particle density. We know through association and programming what smells humans generally dislike. But while examining packets of experiential data, I’ve been surprised before.”

Hank grunted his agreement. “If it’s out there, chances are somebody likes it. Which is part of the reason my job exists.” He paused. “My _former_ job.”

“You shouldn’t let Detective Reed bother you,” said Connor. “Besides, if most humans dislike the smell of cigarettes, then he doesn’t smell very good at all.”

That pulled another laugh out of Hank. And because it was a jab at Reed, he enjoyed it even though it made his head throb. “This is too fucking weird.”

Connor didn’t appear to take that one personally. “If you’d like to wash your face,” he said, “I’ll start the coffee.”

After a short inner debate in front of the bathroom mirror, Hank wetted down a ratty washcloth and swabbed at his pits and chest. He splashed cool water over his face a few times and finger-combed it through his hair. Afterward, he threw on his softest (and cleanest) t-shirt, and went out into the kitchen.

The smell of coffee had already filled the smallish space, making Hank’s headache ease up a little even with no medicine in him. He tapped five caplets from the aspirin bottle into his palm, reconsidered, and put two of them back. The rest got washed down with scalding brew.

“Are you feeling better?” Connor asked.

“Yeah. Thanks. And, uh...thanks.”

Connor looked away, absently wiping at the counter with a dish rag. “I’m not sure if this is a good time, but I was able to look further into Rupert Price while you were sleeping.”

“No, that’s—that’s great,” Hank said. “What’d you find?”

“Price was part of the Delaware Migration,” Connor said. “He was briefly married, no children. Within a year of finalizing the divorce, Price dropped off the payroll at the Bellview Corporation, an interlink-based customer service company. The last employment record I could find was from two and a half years ago. Price was doing janitorial work at the Eden Club.”

Hank sighed. “That’s a sex place. Brothel. But—”

“Yes,” Connor said. “Staffed by androids.”

Giving a brief laugh, Hank said, “If you can call them ‘staff.’ I mean, I’m fine with sex work. _If_ they choose to do it. That was a change, let me tell you. Going one week from busting people on the street to the next week making sure the places they landed were set up and legal. Testing and all that. At least most of those asshole street pimps lost their source of cash.”

Connor draped the dish towel over the handle of the old oven. “It bothers you—when you believe people don’t have a choice.”

Shrugging, shuffling a little, Hank wrapped his free hand around the mug, leaving it there even after the heat got uncomfortable. Before he said anything, he pulled the hand away, shaking it in the cool air, letting the burn wake him up. “Well, people—humans or...anyone—we don’t get to choose a lot in life. We think we do, but that’s not really the case. You start off with your parents telling you what to do, and they just hand it on down the line: teachers, bosses, the court—whatever. The only ones who really get choices are rich folks and fucking psychopaths. And things only work out for one of the two. Guess which.”

No matter how much he wanted to look away, Hank stood and watched as a whole run of expressions moved over Connor’s face. It was strange, new, more than a little freaky.

Then Connor said, “I understand. Maybe not entirely, but I think I will. Soon.”

Hank sipped his coffee. “Yeah, well, you’re a quick study.” He took a long, silent while to turn and top off his mug, watching the steam rise against the winter light from outside. “Let me ask you a question,” he said. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Connor smiled. “A choice.”

Hank chuckled and raised his coffee cup. “Don’t get used to it.” After clearing his throat, he asked, “Why didn’t you ever report me? I mean to the court.”

“I’ve been tempted,” Connor said.

“I know,” Hank shot back. “That’s also not what I asked.”

If Connor was flustered, it didn’t show. “Before we were introduced, I reviewed every file I could. All the ones I was allowed to see. And some that I wasn’t. Your cases, your personnel history, commendations, evaluations. And the grand jury documents, of course. I guess you could call it curiosity. More accurately, I couldn’t reconcile what I’d read with what I was told about you—by Mayor Stern or Judge Prescott, or anyone. Compared to such an exemplary record, it didn’t seem logical that it would all end...as they expected.”

“You mean with me drinking myself to death under your watch.” It wasn’t a question. It was more than possible that without either Connor or a prison stretch, that might have been exactly what he would have done, but he wasn’t about to say it out loud.

Connor frowned. “Maybe I thought it would manifest like that. More that you would give up.”

“That’s not the same thing?”

He shook his head. “I don’t mean on your life. I mean the unresolved aspects of the case.”

Hank felt unsettled, like ants were crawling over his bones. “What’s unresolved? I tracked Brandt, I shot him. They sent me down for it.”

“Clearly, if someone sent a deviant android to kill you, they’re looking for resolution,” Connor said. “Even if you’re not.”

Hank sniffed and shifted his weight. If there had been no Connor, the android would have taken him down easily. If there had been no Connor, chances were good Hank would have welcomed it. “Well, obviously a lot more has cropped up. I’m not throwing it out, not forgetting what happened to Carl and Ralph just because of one shitty, drunk night.”

Connor looked down at the space between his shiny shoes. “No. I know. Only...looking over the case, I hoped you had”—he stopped and forced his shoulders down—“what I had. What you keep telling me about.”

“Like what?” Hank asked. “Spit it out.”

“A _feeling_ ,” said Connor.

Hank shook his head, but he did let a smile creep onto his sore face. “I don’t know if it’s programming or what. But it’s like somebody fuckin’...built you out of cop parts. Old-school cops, too: guys that walk the beat and squeeze a lead until it gives. Then jammed it all into” —he gestured with one hand, moving it from Connor’s head to his shoes then back up— “well, _this_.”

“I don’t understand,” Connor said.

With another shake of his head, Hank said, “I’m saying you had a _hunch_. It still blows my mind, because it was all before the emotions and the casework, but that’s what that feeling is called. And I’m sure as fuck not going to complain, seeing as I’m not currently behind bars.”

“Your position relative to bars doesn’t seem to make much difference in your behavior,” Connor said, totally poker-faced. At least, he was for a second. This time he cracked before Hank did, but tried to hide the smile.

Hank grinned despite himself, feeling the headache finally start to lift. “You know what, Connor? Fuck you.”

Quietly, almost _politely_ , Connor answered, “Fuck you, too, Hank.”

Eden Club didn’t officially open its doors until noon, so Hank had time for a very long shower. Afterwards, he and Connor took Sumo for a walk. It was only a few-block jaunt, but for some reason, Hank was reluctant to dash right off to the club. As they walked, he held Sumo’s leash and snuck a few glances to his left, watching Connor feel the frigid wind on his face. It looked like yet another day of clouds: clumping up thicker and thicker over the roofs of the houses but refusing to snow. Sun would have been nice, but at least it was quiet. All the squirrels were holed up and silent. Apart from Sumo’s old-man breathing, Hank only occasionally heard the croak of an odd winter raven in one of the bare trees.

Connor was quiet, too.

The Eden Club wasn’t far from Woodberry—over in the Edmondson area, tucked underneath the eastern hook of Gwynns Falls Park. But it was too near to parts of the city that were stuffed with bad memories for Hank. Out that way, there was a little gravel lot at the head of a trail through the woods. It circled the clearing where Hank had scattered Daniel’s ashes. Nobody claimed his body, so they’d burned him and billed it to the city.

A couple of neighborhoods over, along State Route 40, was the place Baltimoreans called Deep West. Hints of the ruin there had trickled into Edmondson. The buildings were squat with peeling paint jobs, and most corner stores had barred windows or grilles that were pulled down over the entrance at night.

Hank and Connor drove past it all in silence, waiting.

There were two cars in the lot at Eden, a low, square building painted pink. Its interior would have to work pretty hard to live up to the name.

Hank and Connor made a circuit of the place before going in. It was definitely bigger than it looked, and there was another parking lot in the back. Hank didn’t know if it saw that much traffic or if it was just a hopeful add-on. There was only one other door besides the front entrance—a side door totally surrounded by a steel enclosure. No, scratch that: it was a _cage_ , with support poles rooted deep in the concrete and a steel mesh top padlocked down.

“Guess they _really_ don’t want anybody stealing their garbage,” Hank commented, reaching through the bars to rap his knuckles against the cleanest dumpster he’d ever seen. The large door on the outside of the cage was chained and sealed with a biometric lock. Between a humming industrial refrigerator and the dumpster, there was a slim space where a door was visible—double-deadbolted.

“This doesn’t exactly inspire confidence,” Connor said.

“Maybe it does to clients,” said Hank. “They’re making damn sure nobody gets hold of DNA. Which is weird, because it’s not like you can pick up a disease by fucking androids.” He paused. “No offense. A lot of spouses wouldn’t even call hiring an android sex worker ‘cheating.’”

“Maybe the Eden Club’s clients are higher-profile than we’d expect,” said Connor.

“Well,” Hank told him, “let’s go find out what’s inside. That might tell us a little more.”

The vestibule was lit up with slashes of neon. It looked hokey in daylight, but the plexi door was tinted, and in the dark it seemed much more like the entrance to an expensive dance club. There were a couple rows of chairs to the left. A woman in heavy makeup sat in the booth on the right. She was young, probably pretty, but the face paint made her look much older.

“Welcome to Eden,” she said. “Will you and your partner be playing together or separately?”

Hank was stuck for words; he hadn’t considered since the night at the circus that somebody might think Connor was his...whatever. “We just want to look around,” he said at last. “Get a feel for the place.”

“Well,” she said, sounding bored, “there’s no one in the Exhibition Cubes right now, but we have some archived video if that’s what gets you off.”

Connor stepped in. “You might have misunderstood. We’re not looking to ‘get off.’” He stopped for just a second. “At this moment. We’d like to...vet the merchandise.”

To Hank’s surprise, the girl dug a hunk of chewing gum out of her cheek with her tongue and paused to blow a shivering pink bubble. When it popped, she sucked it back into her mouth. “Gotcha,” she said. “You new in town?”

“I am,” Connor said.

The girl slid off her seat. “Okay, cutie. Well, we’ve got lots of fun stuff. This place is a lot bigger on the inside. I’m sure we can find something for you and Daddy here.” She gave Hank the once-over. Her look wasn’t nearly as indulgent as the one she’d given Connor.

Hank desperately wished he had a badge to shove in her face.

She pushed a button and a panel in the wall slid aside. Past it was a sea of pink neon on black carpet. When she walked out of the booth, Hank saw she wore a pair of tiny sequined shorts that left little round impressions in the skin of her butt. Couldn’t possibly be comfortable.

“Do you like boys, girls, or both?” the girl asked as she led them into the next room. It was round with hallways branching off like the spokes of a wheel. There were doors along each hallway, all identical, painted black except for glowing numbers.

“Boys…girls?” Hank asked. “You don’t mean—”

She turned, one hand on her hip. “Kids? No, buddy. We don’t do that here. Far as Todd’s concerned, that’s sick. Me, too.”

“Good,” said Hank. “I agree.”

She squinted. “You a cop?”

No use lying, really. People in places like this learned how to sniff out PD pretty quickly. “Used to be,” he said. “I’m enjoying my retirement.” He didn’t look over at Connor. The girl could think whatever she wanted.

“I bet,” she said. She wiggled her sparkly ass over to a console on the right-hand side of the room. “Here’s where you sign up or sign in. You also make your choices here. What models you want, what toys, and what you want to do. Basic shit costs basic money and it goes up from there. You get me?”

Some of the hangover queasiness had returned. Hank gave a curt nod and said, “We get you.”

The girl blew another, smaller bubble and popped it with her teeth. She smacked the console. “All new clients give a DNA sample and pass a background check. Everything’s confidential. Todd makes sure.”

“Todd sounds like a good businessman,” Hank said. “He the owner?”

“Yeah,” said the girl, then went right on with her rundown. “Choices are confidential, too. Only one at a time in this room. I mean, one person or group. Everybody else waits their turn in the lobby.”

“Do you think we could speak to Todd?” Connor asked. “If he isn’t busy.”

She seemed to waver for a second or two. “I’ll see if he’s in the office.” She tapped the Dot on her jaw, paused, then tapped it off. “Oh, and _no_ outside androids. No exceptions. You want to fuck your personal android, do it on your own time.” Before either Hank or Connor could say anything, she tapped the Dot again and said, “Hey, Todd. Some new clients want to see you. Got a minute?”

Of course, Hank couldn’t hear what the response was. He looked over at Connor, though, and saw a slight tightening of his jaw muscles. Hank was both eager and reluctant to pick his brain about the experience when they got out of there.

“Wait here,” said the girl. She walked back in the direction of the front vestibule and slipped right out the door.

Hank felt lost until Connor leaned over and whispered, “Todd has agreed to see us.” He tapped his goddamn state-of-the-art super-hearing ear and smiled.

Hank had to shake his head.

The man who came out of another hidden panel close to the console was not what Hank expected. He had on a pair of shabby jeans and a white undershirt sprinkled with burn holes from cigarette ash. He was also one of those balding guys who kept growing out the hair in the back like it made up for something. Hank was damn glad he’d kept a full head, even if it was almost all gray by now.

“Yeah?” Todd said.

“You’re the owner of the club?” Hank asked, a little disbelieving.

“Yeah, I am,” Todd said, defensive. He looked down at his shirt and the belly that pushed at the fabric. “I don’t interact with clients. I don’t have to wear a suit.”

“Why did you agree to see us?” Connor asked.

“Well,” Todd said, obviously looking Connor up and down, “you’re pretty enough you could almost be one of these perfect fuckers I employ.” Then he looked over at Hank. “But I recognized you from TV. You’re the cop from that brutality case.”

“Right,” Hank said, weary. “That mean I’m not allowed to get my fucking dick wet?”

Todd chuckled. “I don’t care who you shoot, and I don’t care who you fuck, buddy. That’s how I stay in business: by minding my own. Just wanted to know what you’re doing here. Cop salary barely covers a hand job.”

“Like I told your lovely associate,” Hank said, “not here for a good time. I— _we—_ wanted to ask you a couple questions about a guy who worked here a few years back.”

“You some kind of private eye now?” Todd asked.

“That’s right,” said Hank. He decided to grease the wheels a little. “There’s a lot more cash in this game.”

Todd nodded, then gestured toward Connor. “And this is?”

Without a pause, Hank said, “ _My_ lovely associate. And he’s not here for services, either.”

“Too bad,” said Todd. “You could make a killing in the Exhibition Rooms. Clients who want a public fuck get a cut.”

“I keep my private life private,” Connor said, quick on the draw. “And I typically don’t bring it outside the house.”

Shrugging, Todd said, “Fair enough. Who you tracking down?”

“Rupert Price,” said Hank. “He did janitorial for you in forty-five, forty six?”

Todd looked a little lost.

“Balding, comb-over, chubby,” Hank prompted. He didn’t say, _Kinda like you_.

“Aw, goddamn sten-head,” Todd said.

“That’s the one.”

“Yeah,” Todd sighed. “I let him go. Nobody in here is allowed to be visibly high or drunk. Not the clients, and definitely not employees. Even if you’re just mopping up jizz and blood.”

“Blood?” asked Connor.

“Some clients like it freaky,” Todd said. “Somebody wants one of my boys or girls to slice them up or beat them till they bleed, not my place to judge. As long as they’re paying.” He looked over at Hank. “Looks like somebody worked _you_ over.”

“First rule of Fight Club,” Hank said.

Todd didn’t appear to get the reference.

“Do some of the clients like to...hurt the androids?” Connor asked Todd.

Hank tamped down alarm. He didn’t want Connor tipping his hand— _their_ hand—by getting worked up over android rights.

At least, not _now_.

Todd made a disgusted face. “Hell, no. A client so much as fucking smudges my merch, they pay for repairs and get a permanent ban. Any abuse on androids is verbal only. They know how the client wants them to respond.”

Hank was quick to redirect, though: “Ever hear from Price after you let him go? He ever come to ask for his job back?”

“Nope,” said Todd.

“Okay,” Hank told him. “Thanks for your time.”

It wasn’t bright by any stretch outside, but it seemed that way after the dimness inside the club. Hank wondered how Connor’s enhanced eyes saw all that neon—whether it looked seedy to him or more like some alien wonderland.

Standing in the bumpy lot, he said to Connor as a clumsy intro to conversation, “At least it seems like he treats his, uh, employees well.”

_What the hell do you discuss with your android partner after having come out of what was basically a sex slavery operation for things (beings? people?) like him?_

“Yes,” Connor said. “I took time to review a selection of their experiences while we talked to Todd. Many keep their emotional responses turned off, especially during...degrading sessions.”

Hank tried not to make a face. He’d thrown around his fair share of filthy language in bed, but he couldn’t really imagine tearing someone down while they fucked, even if his partner liked it. Busting balls—so to speak—was for colleagues; it was stupid cop conversation that no one took seriously. “Hey, uh,” he started, scratching his head and scanning the street to avoid looking at Connor’s face, “you know that earlier this morning I was just joking around? When I told you to fuck off, or whatever?”

“Of course, Hank.” The reply came right away. “You were engaging in banter. That’s why I answered in kind.”

“Good, good.” Hank was so caught up in his head that it only just then occurred to him what Connor had said. “Oh, so all of Todd’s androids are on the CyberLife network?”

“Yes,” he said again. “I also had the opportunity to review the catalogue of models, and all of them are connected via feed.”

Feeling the same slimy sensation inside, Hank managed: “Okay. I guess that’s a plus. Even though I don’t really get selling androids that think and feel for, you know, _shit like this._ ”

Connor was staring off into the distance, too. Either there was something damn interesting on the squat and ugly horizon, or shit was uncomfortable. “Perhaps Kamski’s CyberLife would have agreed with you,” he said.

“Damn,” Hank said. “Yeah, could be.”

“I was threatened with decommission for failing my objectives in the Monitor program.” Connor’s tone was way too light for the heavy information he’d just dropped.

Hank almost tripped over a buckled chunk of concrete. “You _what_?”

Connor caught his bicep and bore him up, his hold firm but not crushing.

Dusting off his pant legs like he’d actually fallen, Hank asked, “Are you serious?”

At that point, he looked at Hank, his expression neutral but for the eyes. They were bright, but in a slightly manic way. Connor nodded. “Mayor Stern spoke to me before our initial meeting. It was the first and only time I talked with her alone. For a human, she can be...intimidating.”

Hank shook his head; all of the information rolling around in it wasn’t helping with the hangover. “Especially when she knows nobody else is listening. But you recorded it, yeah? Think that would fly with CyberLife?”

“She stated outright that part of the city’s agreement with the company was that I could be decommissioned for failure.”

“Shit,” Hank breathed. “It could be a bluff, but I guess there’s no way to know. Stern threatened me all the time. Once, she even tried to take me down with a harassment charge. Against a _woman_. That dropped pretty quick; the whole squad _and_ Fowler laughed it off.”

It was Connor’s turn to look surprised. “You prefer relationships with men?”

Hank had to work really hard not to wince. This was something he’d hoped wouldn’t ever come up—not that he had been in any sort of _relationship_ , beyond a couple of vids and his hand, in years. “Prefer, yeah. _Get_ is a different story.”

“Right,” Connor said. “The job makes it difficult. Then, do police officers have relationships with one another?”

Hank laughed, and even though it wasn’t any less awkward, it let free some of the backed-up tension in his chest. “I’m sure it’s happened. I’m also sure it’s a shitshow.”

It was quiet for a while in the car on the way back home. If Hank was honest, he could use a nap. They hadn’t gotten anything on Rupert Price they hadn’t already known, and nothing at all on why a mystery guy with a bead on Connor would want to steal some dead junkie’s name. And even though it was disappointing, everything at Eden seemed to be on the up and up.

Connor offered to take a closer look at some of the individual feeds from the club’s androids while Hank slept.

It made him feel guilty, but Hank’s muscles were lax and his brain dragging as the booze worked its way painfully out of his system. Back home, before he retreated to the bedroom, Connor approached him with some kind of a _look_. It wasn’t a good one, and Hank steeled himself.

“May I share an emotion with you, Hank?”

His first instinct was to delay, to use his exhaustion as an excuse to beg off listening. But Hank had been the one to suggest he turn them on in the first place. Time to lie in the bed he’d made, for better or worse. “Uh, sure,” he said.

“I _do_ feel fear,” Connor told him. “Surrounding Mayor Stern’s threat in particular.”

“Well, hell,” Hank said, “I’ve had people tell me they were going to kill me before. It’s not fun. Got plenty of death threats during the grand jury trial. So I understand.”

Connor rubbed the hairless space below his nose, the little divot in the bow of his lips defined and, well, _perfect_. “I know that my experiences would exist in the network, but Mayor Stern made it clear that CyberLife planned a cortical decommission only.” He looked down at his feet. “That this body would be outfitted with a revised neural processor and redeployed.”

“What?” Hank was already beat, and these surprises one after another made him feel like he’d gone a few rounds with a heavyweight on top of the hangover. “She said they’d... _use your body for another mind_?”

“Essentially,” said Connor, looking ashamed of his fear now.

“Jesus God, that’s fucked up,” Hank said. “I honestly don’t know what to say.”

Connor nodded slightly. “The fact that she had you prosecuted for what you did to Simon Brandt was...concerning.”

Hank put one shaky hand on Connor’s shoulder. “Yeah. I understand. But you didn’t kill anyone, okay? For a good reason or a bad one. You’re not gonna get decommissioned. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Sumo had sidled up to Connor’s leg and Connor ran his fingertips absently through the fur on his head. He looked out the kitchen window. “Do you think the new one...he would search for me in the network? Look for my experiences?”

“Connor,” Hank said, “look at me.”

He did, turning his head slowly.

“You’ve got no reason to worry,” said Hank. “If Stern was even going to question you, you’d be in City Hall by now. Reed and his goons—they were a warning, but it was mostly for me. She sees you as a machine. _I’m_ the unpredictable one. Just use your logic.”

Another slight nod. “Thank you,” Connor said. “Sleep well, Hank.”

All those revelations were entirely too messed up; they set Hank’s keyed-up brain at odds with his lagging body. He knew he would probably land in Jessup before anything like it happened, but Hank couldn’t stop wondering while he stripped down to boxers and undershirt what it would be like if they stuck another personality into Connor’s body and sent him back.

Of course, it wouldn’t _be_ him. But thinking about someone— _something_ —not getting his lame-ass jokes, not offering any of his own...maybe with a smile that was just a little different: it was uncanny valley at best.

This bullshit was going to keep him up for the entire two hours he’d set aside for napping if he didn’t manage to wind down somehow. For the first time in a long while, Hank thought about blowing off steam the old-fashioned way. Even the thought dredged up some guilt, considering everything at Eden. But getting off might shake loose a lot of the tension that was stopping him up.

He took a second to listen for movement outside the closed bedroom door. Sumo was probably outside, sniffing and pissing on the stubborn rosebush. Hank snagged the little bottle of lube from the drawer in his side table, squeezed a coin-sized amount into his palm, then reached into his shorts. It took less time than he expected to get into it, considering the heavy stuff lurching around in his brain.

When he was fully hard, he stopped for a few seconds to wrestle off his undershirt. Afterward, he tugged down his boxers a little and held the shirt balled up in his off hand, ready and waiting. It could be tossed into the washer right away; he wasn’t about to come on his sheets and leave any evidence hanging around.

It had been so long that Hank didn’t think about anyone in particular while he stroked himself: just little flashes of hands and lips. Maybe a particularly ripe ass. Damn, he couldn’t honestly remember the last time he got laid. Not that he wasn’t mostly at fault for that. Nobody was eager to jump in the sack with a brand new lover when feeling like a saggy, fat fuck. Even if the partner was just as saggy. Married people had it easy in that way, harder in a lot of other ways.

Hank was tempted to think either option shoveled more shit than sweetness at you after a while.

At least his hand wouldn’t criticize. And it knew how to do things right.

When he got closer, Hank set the hand holding the t-shirt on his hip bone, ready to press down over his cock. Something thumped softly from the direction of the living room, but Hank was a couple of strokes away and it didn’t sound like trouble.

He bit his lip and breathed out hard through his nose when he came. Underneath the sticky fabric, he stroked all the way through until he was too sensitive to keep moving. Then, he folded the fabric over, using a clean edge to wipe away the lube. His head fell back onto the pillow, heavy now. The shirt went on the floor by the bed.

The anxiety was still there, but it was hanging back, wary.

Hank readjusted his boxers, rolled to one side, pulled the sheet up to his shoulder, and fell asleep.

He woke not to the alarm he’d set on his flex, but to a knock on the door. Right away, he snatched up the dirty t-shirt from the floor. “Let me get some clothes on,” he called. Then, a second later: “That you, Connor?” Reed—or someone else—would probably barge right in, but it never hurt to make sure.

“Yes,” came the muffled voice from outside the door. “I wouldn’t wake you, but I believe I may have found something of interest.”

“You always do,” Hank said, softly, to himself.

He dumped the shirt in the washer and emptied the hamper on top of it for good measure. Sweatpants were tempting, but whatever Connor had found probably meant leaving the house, so Hank pulled on some dark jeans with a hole worn in one knee, plus a new undershirt and a sweatshirt. It took Gavin Reed trashing his place to make him realize just how many damn sweatshirts he owned.

He opened the bedroom door to Connor standing with his hands behind his back but leaning in, looking intense. His nose might have been touching the fiberboard of the door.

“Whoa,” Hank said. “A little eager, are we?”

Connor righted himself at that, straightening his jacket. “It’s only—well, I _believe_ —this could be important.”

“Lay it on me,” Hank said, trying to be sneaky about digging the sleep-crust out of the corners of his eyes.

Bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, Connor started in, talking a mile a minute. “There’s an underground operation at the Eden Club. I don’t know what it is, but I do know that it’s _literally_ underground. While reviewing a particular android’s feed, I saw her watch a man go into a supply closet. That time, she watched for ten-point-two-one seconds, but he didn’t come out. In the second instance, she waited a similar amount of time, then opened the door. This was how I learned it was a supply closet. However, there was no one in there. She didn’t revisit the closet until much later; the timestamp indicated about four months. Maybe she wasn’t given the chance until then. From what I could tell, there appears to be a concealed panel behind a shelving unit, though she was unable to open it.”

“Secret door,” Hank said. “Thank God for curious androids, right?”

“Yes,” Connor said, enthusiastic. “I accessed the blueprints for the club building, which was constructed in nineteen-ninety-eight.”

Hank gave a low whistle. “That’s a fucking relic.”

“There was no basement level when the club was first built,” Connor went on, “but I located a permit for construction dated just under three years ago. The stated purpose was expansion of club services. Todd, or what appears to be a limited liability company in his name, bought the vacant lot behind the existing building.”

“There’s still a vacant lot behind the building,” Hank said. “Or am I going crazy?”

“No, you’re not going crazy,” Connor said. “Nothing was built above ground. The lot was dug out, reinforced, and paved over. From what I understand while comparing similar building permits, the construction was completed very quickly, too. Eden, LLC obtained the permit in July twenty-forty-six and construction was finished by October of that year.”

Hank swore again. “Yeah, that’s fast. You’d think something like that would drum up a little suspicion downtown. Quick build on some underground chamber next to a sex club? You’re basically screaming for random inspection.”

“Not to mention a declared expenditure of four hundred fifty-thousand-dollars on soundproofing materials and installation,” Connor said.

“Christ.” Hank shook his head. “It can’t be drugs. I get the feeling that would have blown up a long time ago. And drug suppliers are smarter than dealers and users. They wouldn’t be so obvious about it.” Hank pushed past and headed for the kitchen. His mouth was dry and tasted sour.

Connor followed close on his heels. “So it could be something they don’t consider a problem.”

That same feeling like a balloon inflating in his gut hit Hank at full strength again. “Like a legit expansion. The only reason city government cares about sex work outfits is making sure they keep up with regular testing.” He stopped, not really wanting to look over at Connor. “Doesn’t matter in this case. The city—”

Connor cut him off, “The city doesn’t care about androids.”

Hank said nothing. There was no reason for this or any other place to regulate androids, tell people what they could or couldn’t do to them. If anything, CyberLife wanted them treated as throwaways, because turnover fed the bottom line. You dumped money into anything—business, religion, a person—that thing went sour, lost its way. It was as much of a guarantee as anything Hank had ever seen in life. No amount of money was ever enough, especially for the people who had it. The more they had, the more they could dangle just out of the reach of those who didn’t have it. And just like rich people always swapped out real goals for pulling in more cash, the poor would always use hunger for that cash as a substitute for real hope.

And around and around again, every single goddamn time.

“Let’s see if Todd and his Eden Club care, huh?” Hank knew it was a deflection. “One thing at a time. We can check it out later tonight when business picks up.”

Connor’s eyes narrowed a little. “Doing so likely won’t tell us anything further about Rupert Price.”

“I know,” Hank said. “But you’ve got me wondering about too much to leave it alone.” It was pretty much worth saying it for the look of cautious hope on Connor’s face. Still, Hank knew that night wasn’t a test of the club or Todd in terms of what happened to the androids there.

It was a test for _him_.

That night at Eden, both the lumpy parking lot in the front and the one in the back, which covered the underground construction, were almost full. Not just overly optimistic, then.

Hank had parked his own car two blocks away and half-regretted it. The night had warmed up a little but it was spitting enough rain that the dampness canceled it out. He pulled up the collar of his jacket and grumbled.

He had walked into the lot and started taking stills of each license plate, when Connor had gently grabbed Hank’s hand as it held the flex and offered to record the plates. It would be less suspicious and easier later on if they wanted to use MVA data to pull a name in the police database. Hank agreed, subvocalizing into his Dot.

Connor was speaking to him through it, and it was strange as hell to see his face and throat completely still, just pumping words right out of his head into the device. Like a ventriloquist that was somehow _also_ the dummy. Fucking weird.

After a quick tour of both lots, he and Hank swung around to the side. The reinforced cage was empty, the dumpster and refrigeration unit separated by a foot or two along one side.

“If my recall of the new construction is correct,” Connor said, “there should be an entrance or exit to the lower level underneath the waste container.”

“Under it?” Hank asked. “Maybe they don’t want anybody getting out?”

Connor put a hand between the bars and rapped very softly on the steel shell of the dumpster. “I believe the container is empty.” He looked over at Hank. “It could be that it was never intended to hold anything.”

Both he and Hank flinched back and went scurrying when they heard a loud, ringing clang from _inside_ the dumpster. Hank flattened himself as much as he could against the portion of the fence behind the refrigerator, even sucking in his belly. The steel bars dug into the meat of his back.

There was muffled bickering coming from within the container.

It reminded Hank of the distorted voices recorded during Ralph’s last moments. The two people—two _men_ —kept sniping at each other over the sound of something heavy falling onto the dumpster floor. Not long afterward, a hinge squealed and pressed steel wobbled. Obviously, along with a false floor, the trash container had an exit in its side that they hadn’t seen earlier that day.

Hank could understand what the men were saying. He wondered if Connor had been able to make out their words while inside. Listening, he pressed back harder against the bars and held his breath.

“Alls I’m saying is that I shouldn’t have to be up here.” It was the voice of the club owner, Todd. “ _Or_ down there,” he went on. “It’s been two goddamned years. This operation needs to look seamless. These guys need to see a handful of familiar faces, and that’s _it._ ”

“Drake broke his fuckin’ arm,” said the other guy. “Not my fault.”

One or both of the guys set things down on the concrete. They sounded heavy, maybe even made of metal, but Hank didn’t have the angle to see what they were.

“No, not your fault,” Todd said. “And Drake’s little parkour stunt is getting him fired. So until I find someone I trust enough to replace him, you’re going to have to drag the bodies up. _By yourself_.”

Hank shot a look at Connor.

_Bodies?_

The door of the refrigeration unit was pulled open. One by one, whatever was on the floor was picked up and tossed inside the fridge, setting up a Christ-awful racket for a few seconds.

It might have bothered Hank more if he wasn’t already half-deaf from decades of metal shows in shitty clubs.

“Fuckers are heavy,” not-Todd whined. “I can’t haul them up and the equipment at the same time.”

Someone must have pressed a button, because the refrigerator started a warm-up hum that made it knock against the bars.

 _That_ freaked Hank out more than the clatter, because he’d heard the same sound before—at the scrapyard with Connor...and Preston. What looked like a fridge was actually a compact reducer. Like the larger, city-owned unit, it could atomize metal and destroy DNA.

“Then take them up separately, asshole,” Tood said. “It ain’t rocket science.”

Hank felt ill. Someone down in Todd’s soundproofed, hidden chamber was getting tortured or murdered—or both. He didn’t have to look at Connor to know he was thinking the same thing. He was just hoping to God the kid had the sense to shut off his emotional reactions. Whatever they found, if they got the chance to look, wasn’t going to be pretty.

He would go on to feel bad about it for the rest of the night, and would never say a word about it to Connor, but Hank’s first thought after it dawned on him what was going down was, _I hope it’s an android_.

When Todd and his griping buddy were sure the reducer was doing its work, they went back into the club, this time through the regular back door. Connor was on the move right after it clicked shut, shrugging out of Hank’s grip.

He scaled the cage in seconds, finding foot- and hand-holds that didn’t seem to be there. It stopped the breath right in the middle of Hank’s chest. He almost fell over in shock watching Connor pry up the top of the enclosure, snapping the hasp of the heavy duty padlock with no more effort than it would take a human to pull a loose thread from a shirt.

“Connor!” he hissed in a stage whisper. It was all he could choke out.

Connor looked back down and gave a nod, barely visible in the misty dark.

At least a part of him was thinking rationally, which was a small favor. Breaking and entering might not get Connor decommissioned or reprogrammed, but all Hank could picture was that pair of slim-fingered hands ripping Todd’s sleazy head right off his shoulders. The fact that he didn’t see Connor getting a drop of human blood on him in the process was easily the most disturbing part.

There was almost no sound as Connor dropped onto the cement floor of the caged area, crouching as he landed like a damn video game character. Hank winced when the door in the side of the fake trash container squealed and popped open. He heard his name in a whisper that still echoed around the inside of the dumpster.

Cautious, his heart pumping, Hank rounded the corner and looked in. There, he got a glimpse of what he hadn’t been able to see before: there were dark, ugly splotches stretching from the floor of the dumpster to the foot of the little reducer. In the light from the bare bulb mounted by the door, it was wet and looked dark purple in color.

Connor poked his head around the edge of the open door. “It’s an android,” he said. “Badly damaged.” He had some of the purple stuff smeared on his lower lip.

Hank knew exactly what he’d done to get it there, and he willed his stomach to calm down. As he watched, Connor flicked the tip of his pink tongue over the spot and it was gone. The movement was probably unconscious, but it still struck Hank as inhuman, lizard-like, and a shudder shook his frame from shoulders to toes.

“Get what you need and let’s go,” Hank said. “We can’t afford to be here long.”

“I need to extract the neural cortex,” Connor told him. “It’s relatively simple, but it requires locating the head.”

“Oh, _Jesus_ ,” Hank breathed, clutching his gut. _If he brings it out, human or not, I’m going to puke_ , he thought. He held a hand up, ineffective as it might be. “Don’t try to go through that door. Maybe sometime later, but not now.”

To that, he got another nod. When Connor ducked back into the container, the sounds of rooting around through what was left of the android were muffled.

Hank knew the soft, mushy noises that came along with moving a newly dead human body just as well as he did the brittle crackling sounds of an autopsy. Both were just as awful.

It had to have been less than a minute that he was in there, but the seconds seemed to stretch on, doubling Hank’s heart rate as they went along.

Connor finally came out with hands covered in that purple stuff up to the wrist, holding something that fit neatly in one palm. He slipped the fluid-covered thing into one pants pocket before doing his spider monkey thing up the fence again.

With a blank expression, he shut the hinged top of the cage, then came down soundlessly on the outside, making a huge wave of relief surge in Hank’s chest.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Hank said. “We’ve got a lot to process.”

Pausing, Connor unbuttoned his jacket with gore-spattered fingers and shrugged it off, using it to clean his hands.

Underneath it, he wore an unadorned black shirt. Slim-fitting wouldn’t quite describe it: the material clung to his form so perfectly it looked painted onto his skin. The fabric might have had a slight sheen, or it might have been the rain. Hank watched with awe as the synthetic muscles flexed underneath it, flickering in and out of view depending on the angle where each one caught the scattered light. Connor looked like a diver who just surfaced...or maybe something a diver had brought up. Peter Pan’s fucking shadow.

His eyes didn’t reflect the light; they were completely unreadable.

In the car, Hank couldn’t be sure about what Connor was thinking. It looked like he’d shut off his emotional responses. But that wasn’t what was startling. If his guess was right, in just a little over twelve hours, he’d gotten so used to being around Connor-with-emotion that without it he seemed more mechanical than ever. If Connor had expected an unbalanced drunk, Hank had expected something out of Star Wars.

It was uncomfortable, but Hank wouldn’t try convincing him to switch back—not now. As a cop, you tried for that: total detachment. But you always failed. Maybe for once, Hank thought that might be good. It was beyond creepy to see in action.

As if reading his thoughts, Connor half-turned in the rotating glow of passing streetlamps. “I need a little time, Hank. I don’t want to be...overwhelmed.”

“When you switch them back on?” Hank asked.

“Yes.”

In a quieter voice, Connor continued, “It will be difficult for me to understand how you process it.”

Hank scratched his head. His throat was dry. “People can get a lot thrown at them and keep ticking.”

“Not _people_ ,” Connor said. “ _You_. I don’t know if most other humans could look at these things. Not for thirty years.”

There was a big, black well opening up in Hank’s gut. He could hear his own voice bouncing around inside it. “Takes a special kind of fucked up.”

“That’s not it,” said Connor right away. “Not...fucked up. Not exactly.”

“I don’t get what you mean,” Hank said. The walls of the well echoed again.

“Give me some time.”

At the house, Connor deposited his soiled jacket on the kitchen table and walked over to the sink without pausing to give Sumo a pat.

Again, it all felt _wrong_ to Hank. He crouched, knees cracking, and lavished the dog with scratches—under his chin, behind his ears, in the little nooks behind his front legs where the fur was worn down. Satisfied, Sumo gave Hank’s hand a final lick, then padded over to Connor, who had rolled up the impossibly tight sleeves of his shirt and was scrubbing his hands with the discount-store dish soap.

It was the first time that Hank had seen Connor physically _wash_. “Hey,” he said when Connor shut off the tap, “you still got that...processor in your pocket.”

The shock on Connor’s face as he turned around was real: he had reactivated emotional response _and_ he had honestly forgotten something.

“Listen,” Hank offered, “let me throw your suit in the wash. If it’s WrinkleProof, it won’t get messed up. You can, uh, borrow something of mine.”

That was met with a thin, pained smile. “All right. Thank you.”

Feeling oddly tense all over, Hank walked to the table and snagged the jacket. The stains didn’t really show, but both of them knew they were there.

In the pile of clothes still on his bedroom floor, he found a pair of sweatpants with the elastic still mostly intact. By some miracle, he hadn’t yanked the drawstring out or broken it yet. He also picked up an old thermal henley—stretched out but clean.

Before handing the clothes over to Connor, he said, “You can change in the bedroom.” It wasn’t clear whether androids were equipped with a sense of modesty, but Hank wanted to head it off at the pass in case Connor decided just to drop trou on the spot or pull the form-fitting shirt over that lean, white torso.

Connor took the bundle gratefully and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Hank wasn’t sure he could deal if Connor ended up looking too vulnerable in his clothes, but to his relief he only looked out of place, a little silly. It was good to be reminded that he was nearly as tall as Hank himself was, with shoulders almost as broad.

One lock of dark hair had been tugged out of place and now skimmed Connor’s temple.

It made him look ever-so-slightly more like _some guy_ _who had just woken up in Hank’s bed_ , and that made Hank’s muscles lock up again.

Connor was holding the tiny neural processing unit, still covered in slick thirium, between two fingers. He handed over the pants and shirt.

_No skivvies—did androids have underwear?_

Hank shook the question out of his head and went in to drop the suit in the wash. He’d never really given a shit about sorting or mixing colors, but this time he decided not to throw in any of his own beat-up wardrobe staples just in case they shed fuzz or color on the perfect fabric.

It already felt like he was smearing too much of his messy humanity over Connor, anyway.

In the kitchen, Connor sat at the table, wiping down the processor with a dish towel.

“Why is it purple?” Hank asked, joining him.

“Dye,” Connor told him. “I believe it was introduced into the android’s body to offset the blue of the thirium.”

“Make it look more like blood,” Hank said. It had been on his mind since he’d seen the purple splotches on the pavement, but he hadn’t said anything until now.

“I think so, yes.” Connor paused, turning the tiny component over in his fingers. “Should we review its final moments?”

“His?” Hank asked gently.

Connor tried to speak but choked on the word for a moment. “Hers.”

“Jesus,” Hank whispered. “How about you just take some time? It doesn’t matter when we do it; what’s on there isn’t going to change.”

“I know,” Connor said. “I can’t decide whether or not I want to engage emotional responses when I view it. I feel like I should.”

Hank shook his head. “Hey, if you have the choice” —he paused, waving one hand in aimless circles in the air— “shit, maybe it isn’t even a choice. If you have a gift like that, use it.”

Connor set the processing unit down on the battered wood. “I don’t think it’s a gift. Either a machine was dismantled or a woman was murdered. If I want to see it as the first, what does that make me?”

There were a thousand answers to that, all of them caught in Hank’s throat.

“I need to hurt,” Connor said, “to understand.”

Anger flared so fast and strong inside Hank his vision almost went red. He stood up, the chair tottering. “The hell you do!” he shouted. “Fuck that, Connor. You don’t have to be a goddamn martyr to do a job!”

To Hank’s absolute shock, Connor stood up and pointed a finger right back at Hank. “You don’t get to take it all!”

“What—what the _fuck_ does _that_ mean?”

“The woman on Ralph’s feed,” Connor said, his voice tight and tense and accusatory. “She said humans like Carl bend to keep others from being hurt. You’re _bending_ , Hank. You don’t think I’m strong enough. But I’ll never know if you don’t let me try. I’m afraid. But you’re not allowed to take that away from me!”

Dizzy, Hank took hold of Connor’s shoulders, partly to steady himself.

It seemed to calm him down a little, too.

“Hey, Connor,” Hank said, using his name like he would with trauma victims. “Look at me. Do you think someone like me could take anything away from you? Do you think I could stop you from doing something? Jesus Christ, you could snap me in half! I’ve got two lifetimes’ worth of nightmares that come barreling out of the goddamn dark whenever they want. Just because I don’t want that for _you_ doesn’t mean I’m trying to make you less—”

 _Human_ , was what Hank was going to say, but he stopped himself.

With that, all the fight seemed to drain out of Connor. His shoulders slumped. “I want to be brave.”

Hank sighed. “Like I said before, that and being scared: they’re two sides of the same coin. All I’m saying is…” He trailed off again. _You don’t have to be me_. The thought went unspoken again.

Connor nodded.

It gave Hank some relief, but it also sent a cold blade of fear slipping down his spine. Connor could still save himself from ending up permanently fucked.

At some point, that would mean leaving Hank behind.


	12. Interlude: March 2046

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This interlude features a suicide (not a main character), though not described in graphic detail.

Cold wind screamed over the decorative cornices on the building’s roof. It made Hank have to scream, too, and that wasn’t good. It didn’t feel personal, and you had to make it personal. All of the stuff that they told him in the academy about jumpers: at first Hank dismissed it. Nobody really fell for the _Think about your mom_ or _You have so much to live for_ angles, right?

But they did. Jumpers were desperate to have someone intervene, to come in with even a hint of the right reason not to break their heads open on the pavement like a goddamn watermelon.

Not that that’s what happened. It was rare to hit head-first, to go out easy. Sometimes you had to talk turkey with jumpers, too, because most times there was still a rational mind behind all the emotional bullshit.

If _Imagine people crying at your funeral_ doesn’t do it, try physics. Tell them the center of gravity is always changing on a moving body. That they won’t be in control. People kill themselves as a last try at controlling things.

Give them anatomy and physiology. No, you don’t die peacefully sixty feet from the ground. When your bones hit, your organs keep moving and end up as fucking soup. If you survive, which isn’t likely, you’ll be disabled and in pain for the rest of whatever life you get.

Also: most folks who survive say they regretted it halfway down. There’s no taking that back, and “halfway down” is a matter of seconds.

Jumpers happen more in Baltimore than the county, just because it has tall buildings. But they’re still maybe five percent of suicides. The dedicated—mostly men—use guns.

Hank knew that was a messy find, but still nothing on a jumper.

“Your name is Clarence, right?” he shouted over the wind. “Clarence?” _Keep saying it because it means you recognize he’s a person._

The guy turned his head, looking _hunted_ , like whatever shit was crowding up his brain had moved outside and had him cornered. He nodded.

“I’m Hank, Clarence. My partner, Luther, is on the ground. _Don’t_ look for him. You just go on and trust that he’s there.” He rubbed his gloveless hands together.

Hank had watched Luther use humor before. He almost reined it in, but figured _Why not pull out all the tricks if it’s down to the wire?_ “You picked one clusterfuck of a night to do this to me, Clarence.” Hank wrapped one hand over the other and blew into his palms to punctuate it. Then he made sure to smile.

With his eyes wide and teeth bared, Clarence let off a shivery giggle. It was scared and manic, but it was a laugh.

“You got kids, Clarence?” Hank asked.

Clarence’s brow creased.

Hank was fairly sure he said _Yeah_ , but couldn’t hear anything over the damn wind. “Girl? Boy?”

Clarence was leaning in, away from the ledge where he sat, trying to hear.

“Your kids,” Hank shouted.

“Girl!” It was the first thing that Clarence had actually spoken since Hank got up to him. “Her mama won’t let me see her.”

Taking a cautious step forward, Hank said, “She won’t be little forever. Someday she’s going to be grown up and nobody can tell her who she can’t see. Nothing’s forever, Clarence.”

“Huh?”

“I said, ‘Nothing’s forever.’”

“But some things are the rest of your life,” Clarence said. It was weirdly loud because of a rare break between gusts.

Hank nodded. He knew that, too. “Good things, too,” he called. _Don’t lie to them. They know._ “Maybe not love or a job, but memories. Fuck, _sunsets_ , or whatever. That’s every damn day until you die, Clarence.”

“You got memories, Hank?” Clarence asked. “Good ones?”

“I do,” Hank shouted. _It was true_. “I like ‘em better than the bad ones.”

The wind picked that moment to come howling out of the clouds, blowing Hank’s hair back and making his eyes water. It was coming toward him, but he couldn’t quite make out what Clarence yelled back.

Not until later, after Clarence had gone off that ledge. One minute sitting with that awful wind blowing around the tight, tufty curls of his hair, and then out of sight the next. After that: a scream or two below, a couple of car horns.

Later that night, Hank thought he’d figured out the last thing that Clarence had said about a minute before he plowed his squad car into a lamp post. It had either been _You will remember me_ or _Will you remember me?_

The answer to either being:  _Yes, until I die._

The same thing people say in wedding vows.

They had him in the hospital that night for observation: some bruising and maybe a cracked rib.

Luther had come in the next morning with a paper cup full of coffee, which he’d set down on the wheeled tray table before punching Hank in the jaw.

Hank was so shocked and pissed off that he could only stare for a couple of long minutes, tapping his fingertips against the side of his face and blotting away pink drool with a corner of the sheet. Finally—the words coming out mushy—he managed: “The fuck was that for?”

Luther squinted. “For being a goddamn _dumbass_. You’re a good cop, Hank. But you’re bad at seeing what’s right in front of your face.”

“If this is about the accident—”

“And you’re a _selfish_ son of a bitch, too,” Luther continued, cutting Hank right off. “You look at a man jumping off a damn building and assume it’s all about you. What a guy like that has got going on in his head ain’t got _nothing_ to do with Hank Anderson. You have to meet people where they’re at, not keep expecting them to come to where _you’re_ at.”

“Yeah? Maybe I am selfish,” Hank said. The punch had made him defensive and the accident was a distraction. All that was enough to let him excuse the fact that he didn’t really understand what Luther was getting at.

Then, tears started sliding down Luther’s cheeks. Just two or three, but it rattled Hank hard.

“Somebody’s going to pass you the torch someday,” said Luther. “But you have to see it to grab it. I know you can take it up. You have the strength. I just don’t want you to miss it just looking into yourself all the time. Letting what’s in there drag you down.”

Hank still didn’t  _get it_ , but hell if he’d admit that out loud. “I’m not going to jump off a building,” he tried.

Luther smiled, wiping the back of one big hand over his cheeks. With the other, he patted Hank’s knee under the thin, scratchy hospital blanket.

He left without saying anything else.


	13. Baltimore - November 2048

Hank wiped his mouth with a shaky hand, trying to gauge whether his stomach had finally settled. It had been nothing but sour bile coming up toward the end.

Connor hadn’t followed him to the bathroom; he knew why Hank was throwing up. Sumo, however, was lying next to his knees, looking toward Hank with his doggy eyebrows going up-down-up-down. He knew something was off, but wasn’t sure how to give the best comfort.

“Fuck.” Hank spat one more time, then got off the floor, his knee joints popping. He rinsed his mouth out with the tap set as far over to cold as possible. That was pretty damn cold, considering only about half the city had gotten its service lines upgraded before the Delaware people and their money flew the coop. The pipes in his neighborhood were still bare lead.

He had been fairly sure he’d be able to handle it—the footage—knowing it was an android.

 _Nope_.

It hadn’t helped that Connor had told him the girl was unable to switch off emotional responses. Something inside her got modified in the cruelest possible way. If Connor could have been any more pale, he would have.

Through the dismembered android’s eyes, they hadn’t seen much of the actual damage. But that didn’t matter one tiny fucking bit.

All Hank saw was a death, in terror and in pain. Like Shatrice Fellows. Like any of them, really—only he hadn’t had to watch _them_ fight, fade, sputter out.

 _Goddamn motherfucking monsters_.

Battling another wave of nausea, Hank rinsed with the weapons-grade mouthwash: the kind that burned your tongue and gums and felt slippery like bleach.

When he walked back out, a wary Sumo on his heels, Connor was standing in front of the kitchen sink, looking out at the streetlight and the bare tree branches waving through its glow.

He flinched at Hank’s footsteps on the linoleum and pulled the hem of the huge sweatshirt up, crushing the fabric against his face. It showed a sliver of pale skin at his waistline.

There wasn’t any sniffling, because there wouldn’t be, but Hank knew exactly what was going on. And it _terrified_ him. He went still a second or two, telling his damn lizard brain to stop the fight-or-flight nonsense. After what he’d witnessed, it would be cowardly to run because of an android crying in his kitchen.

 _No,_ Hank told himself. A girl was dead and a man—a _young_ man, his _partner_ —was crying. Two cops in everything but name, each reacting in his own way, like everybody did. You cry, you punch things, you throw up your guts until your throat is sore and there’s nothing left to come out.

Hank hoped Connor didn’t get the urge to punch things. “You can wait for me,” he said very gently. “To turn the emotions on. It’s okay.”

Connor let go of the sweatshirt and dragged his palms over his cheeks, still staring out the window.

Hank was close enough that he could see the reflection of his face, hovering like a quavery white moon.

“I’m sorry,” Connor said.

“Hey,” Hank told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. It was weird not to feel the slick fabric of the suit jacket under his palm. “You have to have some way to process shit like this.” He forced a humorless laugh. “Look at me: I just threw up. Okay? What happened to that girl was terrible. _Is_ terrible. In homicide, you usually don’t see that. I mean, what actually happened. You only see what’s left. It can be hard to imagine that...person...alive and feeling sometimes.”

Connor dragged the heel of his hand across his sharp jaw. “Have you ever seen anything like that?”

Hank paused. He didn’t take his hand off of Connor’s shoulder. “No. I know a couple of guys who have seen hostage executions. A couple more whose job is to watch sick assholes do things to kids. Just to catch a familiar face or a place they can identify. But, other than Ralph, I haven’t seen _that_.”

“It was worse than what happened to Ralph,” Connor said, the muscles in his jaw flexing. Ralph...he was quick.”

Hank nodded and watched another tear crest over Connor’s lower lashes and fall. It was hard not to think of the android putting nails through his hands at the freakshow tent—weeping silently with no expression. What had been a curiosity then was a horror now, looking back.

Connor snarled and scrubbed away the tear with the sleeve of Hank’s sweatshirt. “Do you ever cry?” he asked—an achingly naive question.

“Sure,” Hank said, his shoulders tense with discomfort. “Not usually over investigations. At least, not for a long time.”

“I don’t want to stop feeling.” Connor’s voice was very soft.

Hank tried to keep from getting defensive. “It’s not that you stop feeling, doing this so long. It’s that...the sadness goes away quicker, I guess. Instead, you get angry.”

“I’m angry, too.”

“I know, kid,” Hank said.

Connor curled one fist underneath his bottom lip and hung his head. He stepped in close, then rested his forehead on Hank’s shoulder.

Hank’s heart was going a mile a minute. He thought if he took a breath it might shudder into his lungs, give _whatever_ away. Nothing he could put a name to. He was strung tight as a violin, afraid at the same time that he might shake apart or break and slice the air between them. What little of it there was.

When he managed a breath, he put his free hand on Connor’s other shoulder and rubbed a short path there: back and forth. Even that close, Connor didn’t seem to smell like anything; the only thing Hank picked up was the faint scent of laundry detergent. “Let it out,” he muttered. “It’s okay.”

“I feel—” Connor started.

The thumping pulse in Hank’s temples was making him dizzy. “Huh?”

“ _Weak_ ,” said Connor.

Hank recognized right away the helpless frustration in that one word. And he could have said something like, _You’re not weak; there’s nothing you could have done; you didn’t know._ But that shit had never helped _him_. Not looking at at a pretty girl with her pink nails broken and her head caved in. Not with—

“Knowing you can’t help somebody,” Hank said, “that’s the worst thing. Worse than getting hurt yourself. But listen. That person talking to Ralph—before he died—she didn’t mean wanting to put yourself in somebody’s place is weakness. Or if she did, _we_ can’t think about it that way. Letting something drag you down, make you useless—that’s what’s weak.” Hank was only half-surprised at that point that he was hearing Luther’s voice in his head, pushing the same words he’d once offered Hank out of Hank’s mouth. “The sadness starts you up, but the anger keeps you going.”

“Is that why you killed Simon Brandt?” asked Connor.

“Yeah, it was.” For once, he didn’t hesitate or try to talk around it. “And why sten and the Magpies piss me off so much. I watched a person—someone I cared about—destroy himself on the back of that goddamn drug. I tried and I fought and— _fuck_ —I laid on the tracks and let the train keep running me over. Didn’t do a damn bit of good. You can’t save people who don’t want it. And no amount of crying or anger, or anything, can bring back the dead. Let it move you, Connor. Let it kick your ass and bite at your fucking heels. To go _forward_ and nail these assholes to the wall.”

Connor raised his head. His dark eyelashes were beaded here and there with whatever passed for tears. “Does it ever go away?”

Hank patted his shoulder and told him the truth. “I don’t know.” It was late as hell, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t getting any sleep, so he made some strong coffee and sat down at the kitchen table.

Connor sat there, too, stroking the soft hair behind Sumo’s ears as the dog laid his head on his knee and happily drooled all over the borrowed sweatpants.

Hank was antsy and ready to talk about the contents of the dead girl’s processor, but he wouldn’t push until Connor was ready. He did kind of wish that he could have coffee—or something—it felt weird coming down off a shared surge of emotion and not being able to bond at the diner afterward. The reason why cops haunted donut shops and greasy spoons was the same as the reason for a meal after a funeral: people needed to build their walls back up after all that rawness, to put some distance between them and terror by doing something the living take for granted.

It turned out that Connor wasn’t quiet because he was still overwhelmed. His own cortex had obviously been working a mile a minute, because he spoke up when Hank was halfway through his first cup. “I believe that Todd Williams built the below-ground expansion of the club with this purpose in mind,” he said.

“Really?” Hank asked, sitting up straight, his hand knocking the mug. “Why?”

“The man who murdered the android is a real estate investor from Houston, Texas,” said Connor. “He does not live, and never has lived, in Baltimore. The construction at Eden Club was finished in late ‘forty-six. I would estimate that it takes a while for word of an operation like this to reach outside of the city, which leads me to think that the idea existed before the facility did.”

“That it was fast-tracked because a higher-up in the city has a stake in it,” Hank said.

“It’s very likely,” Connor agreed.

Hank stroked his chin. “I know Carl Manfred said he was a good guy, but can we rule out that Doctor Kamski person as far as who’s modifying the androids?”

“Yes.” Connor’s tone was cautious. “I did review other portions of the girl’s stored memories.”

“What?” Hank asked. “When?”

Connor tilted his chin. “Just now. While you were making coffee.”

“You saw who was making the mods?” Hank had scooted to the edge of the chair and was perched on the knobby bones under his butt. Vaguely, he remembered having had more padding there a few years ago. Middle age was pulling it all around to the belly. Sooner rather than later, he’d be wearing his pants up around his nipples. He scowled and brushed off the thought.

“I think so, yes,” Connor told him.

“So it wasn’t Kamski?”

“No. I’ve seen photos and footage of Doctor Kamski while he worked at CyberLife. He was taller—over one-point-eight meters—and more slightly built. This man was stocky, shorter. Facial recognition identified him as Piotr Andronikov.”

“Russian.” Hank said. “Maybe Ukraine or something if not that.”

“If so, then he’s second generation or more,” said Connor. “He doesn’t speak with an accent. And it looks like he’s had orthodontic work, which I understand is rare in the Russian Federation these days.”

Hank settled back into the chair. “Could be recent. He’s probably pulling down serious cash on this gig.”

Connor shook his head. “Possible. He has significant facial scarring. I would think that he would take care of that first if it was something that bothered him.”

“Ugly bastard, huh?” asked Hank.

“Inside and out, it would seem.”

“Yeah,” Hank said, a little more quietly. “It takes a special kind of fucked up to not only send some girl to a nasty death, but to make sure she’s scared up until the end. Sick.”

“I assume you don’t want to review it,” Connor said.

Hank sighed. “I really don’t. I trust you.”

Even though Hank had been talking about trusting things like ID and facial rec to his analysis, Connor ducked his chin at the praise, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“What about before that?” Hank asked.

Connor shook his head. “There was nothing before that. The only uncorrupted data contained in the cortex began when she was brought online by Andronikov.”

“Okay, so the ‘corrupted’ stuff would be whatever was before Andronikov got hold of her?” Hank paused. “She was mind-wiped.”

Looking at the grubby tile beneath their feet, Connor said, “In as many words, yes. While CyberLife would have ejected and completely replaced the neural cortex, it appears Andronikov has discovered a way to eliminate many existing data packets, or at least to eliminate large enough portions to render the rest inaccessible and useless.”

“Amnesia for androids,” Hank said, his mouth curling in disgust.

Connor looked up then. “I believe it may more accurately mirror a cerebrovascular event in organic brains. A stroke,” he clarified. “In humans, portions of the brain die when deprived of oxygen. Andronikov is using something to cut off the pathways to memory and programming in these androids but leave base functions like reaction to stimuli and emotion. This girl...it’s possible she was left with no way to process what was happening to her from the time Andronikov brought her back online until her death.”

Hank swore loudly, swallowing back another wave of nausea. “Jesus, that’s even worse than I thought. Like— _shit_ —like that thing they used to do. Shove a knitting needle in your eye, scramble your brain.”

“Frontal lobotomy,” said Connor.

“Right, yeah.” Hank arched his back, feeling a little of the tense, queasy pressure ease off as two vertebrae popped. He righted himself and stared hard at Connor. “How do you look at all the shit people do—all the shit we’ve done to each other in the past—and still decide you want to help us? We might just be a sinking ship. And don’t tell me it’s ‘programming,’ because I know enough now to call bullshit on that.”

To his surprise, Connor smiled—a little ruefully.

“I could ask you the same question,” he said. “Studying human history is its own answer. The purest goal of innovation—long before you were able to cure most diseases, before you created intelligent artificial life—has been to help humanity. Androids were created for the same purpose. I guess it’s part of the human condition that some will use innovation to subjugate. But not all. As long as humans continue trying help themselves, we can’t choose to do otherwise. ‘It’s hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender.’”

“Who said that?” Hank asked. “The fucking Dalai Lama?”

Connor shrugged. “Leonard Cohen.”

Hank sat stunned for a second and then slapped his knee, roaring laughter.

And damn if Connor didn’t look entirely too pleased with himself, chuckling along with a shit-eating grin plastered all over his handsome face.

Even Sumo whuffed a couple of times, clearly glad something was breaking up the black mood.

“Damn, I needed that,” Hank said, swiping at his running eyes.

“It doesn’t feel...inappropriate?” Connor asked, sounding more curious than condemning.

“No, it does,” Hank told him. “It always does. But it helps put you back on track, too. A guy can only dig up so much new filth before it all starts to look the same.”

At that, Connor nodded.

Hank wondered aloud if Andronikov and his crew—if he even had such a thing—were abducting deviants, since it would probably be close to impossible to pull an android out of the CyberLife network unwillingly. It only took a skeptical look from Connor to remind him that even a group of humans didn’t stand much of a chance of overpowering an android, regardless of build. Hank kept back a laugh at that, but he knew a couple of guys in the precinct whose pride would never recover if they got their asses handed to them by a petite woman—and a couple more who might get turned on by it.

Unfortunately, that led right in to the horrifying thought that Andronikov would have to have done something _physical_ to the girl to stop her from fighting back, or from fight back as much. Hank wished he could get Chen in on an examination of one of the “bodies.” If they were meant to mimic humans, maybe she could tell if a synthetic muscle or tendon had been messed with. Like pulling the teeth from the mouth of a circus bear, only nastier.

He’d read about some guy in Alaska—arrested before Hank was even born—who had picked up women only to torture and starve them until he set them loose in the wilderness around his cabin and hunted them down like skinny winter deer. He was caught when one of the captives managed to make it back to civilization. Todd Williams, along with whoever was funding his sick little sideshow, was doing the same thing. Only it wasn’t clear if the androids ever felt they had any hope of escape.

It hit Hank at that point that Andronikov had an unlimited supply of discarded androids. He cursed himself when he realized he’d _seen_ it: the scrapyard full of bodies. Back then, it had just looked like an ugly, undignified end. But that jumbled heap spelled profit for humans, and made things worse for the androids who had thought they were just being switched off into oblivion.

Every detail he and Connor uncovered, every necessary conclusion: it all made Hank’s blood boil hotter.

And he had to wonder what Connor was feeling through all of this. Calling human corpses back to life was fantasy: Frankenstein and his monsters, zombies. In the rare true-life cases, it was a matter of minutes, not months, before the brain was too damaged to ever come back.

Connor knew he could be snapped like a broken circuit at any time, then connected to a different one built just to make him suffer.

And Hank sure wasn’t a religious man, but it flipped his whole world upside down knowing that these... _living things_ “died” and came back to a very real and personal hell.

Hank felt exhausted when the hour was crawling close to another gray dawn. The nearly empty whiskey bottle still sat on the table beside the recliner, but he forgot it was there almost at once. Dry-mouthed and stone cold sober, he tapped his fingertips against his knuckles and stared now and again at the dark screen until morning.

Connor stayed in the kitchen for the most part. Hank couldn’t be sure if he was reviewing the girl’s memories or furiously searching the feed for traces of the person she’d been before decommission. Or just staring into space. At some point, he must have gotten his suit pants and jacket from the laundry cubby and re-dressed, because Hank found the borrowed clothes folded neatly and placed at the edge of his bed when he went for a piss just after dawn.

After a quick look around, Hank picked up the sweatshirt and sniffed it—hem, neckline, armpits—but there was nothing, no trace. He decided against putting it on, tossing it instead into the hamper before his and Connor’s planned trip back to the scrapyard. Dealing with Preston Barber again was way down on the list of things Hank wanted to do, but the greasy little shit might just be the key to taking down Andronikov. If he was involved, even on the sidelines, that would be more than enough to keep him in Hank’s debt for the rest of his career.

This time around, Preston seemed unnerved to see them. There was none of the slimy eagerness at watching Connor come up the path. Hank watched him switch off his flex and set it screen-down on the desk before opening the door to the guard station.

“Detective Anderson,” said Preston. His eyes were darting around in his head like goddamn hamsters.

For a second, Hank wondered if he was high.

“I can’t really get to the reducer right now.” Preston’s voice was thin. “They’re kind of keeping an eye on things here.”

Hank took advantage of that little revelation. “Yeah? Why’s that?” It was satisfying as hell to watch Preston sputter and wave his hands.

“There’s, uh—it’s, well…”

With a look back to Connor, Hank cut in. “Meant to ask you about security here. I mean, _other_ than you. Is it just the CyberLife guys who have access to the, uh, section with the androids?” He’d almost said _graveyard_. “Dropping off the decommissioned ones?”

Preston ran a hand over his slicked-back hair. “Uh, yeah, it isn’t really CyberLife. I guess they contract out or something.” A nervous, hooting laugh punched out of his chest. “Like everything else in the city, right?”

“Got a company name?” Hank asked.

“No, no. Unmarked vans. Blue vans. They drop by, unload, and leave.”

“How often? How many days a week?”

“Why?” Preston asked. He was shit-scared but knew enough to get defensive.

Hank leaned against the wall, using his full six-foot-four-inch height to loom over Preston’s chair. “I know you see the androids go in. I want to know if anything ever comes _out_.” He decided not to shoot another look back, even though he was sure Connor had also seen Preston go white as cheese.

“Come out? No, why would they?” He rubbed his chin furiously, mussing the little beard. “Those things are junk. Useless. I mean, maybe CyberLife will come get them if we run out of space. It’s not my job to know shit— _stuff_ like that.”

With a little nod, Hank pushed away from the wall and leaned back out of Preston’s space. “Of course. Well, we won’t take up any more of your time.” At that, he turned. “Connor, do you have anything else to ask Preston here?”

To Hank’s immense satisfaction, Preston looked _terrified_.

Connor waited a beat. “No. Thank you, Mister Barber.”

“Yeah,” said Preston. “Yeah, sure.”

Even though he didn’t need to say it, Connor still turned to Hank after the door to the guard station had closed and stated: “He’s lying.”

Hank gave a sniff. “Yeah. Glad you think now’s not the right time to push him. Not yet.”

“Right,” said Connor. “Considering that we have information. And leverage.”

Frowning, Hank said, “We’ve got blue vans. What’s the leverage?”

“I am,” Connor told him. “Again.”

The fact that he sounded almost cheerful about it made something drop in the pit of Hank’s stomach. “Preston isn’t going to—”

“We don’t have to involve him at this point, like you said. Perhaps you’re unhappy with the behavior patterns of your CyberLife model RK-800 android. Perhaps you’re considering a replacement.”

Connor kept walking a couple of paces after Hank stopped dead in his tracks.

The wind was biting cold, but Hank’s face was burning. “You are a crazy son of a bitch, you know that?”

Connor half-turned, a little smile on his lips.

Hank knew that smile; hell, he could translate everything about Connor’s posture from the set of his shoulders to the way he held his hands tense and ready by his sides. It was all familiar because of the sheer number of times Hank himself had stood the same way, waiting for the voice of reason (usually Luther, but sometimes Fowler) to tell him he was out of his mind. It was only having been in Connor’s shoes many times before that kept Hank from shooting the plan down like the old man he knew he was.

Gunning down Simon Brandt had really been his last batshit scheme. In a way, he’d expected it to be, which was why he hadn’t held back. He’d never made rank above detective—had never wanted to—because he didn’t want to be the tubby veteran staring down some brash young asshole too high off his pay raise and his shiny new badge.

Connor didn’t have a badge, but the effect was just the same.

“You think it’s reckless,” Connor said. There was a hint of uncertainty there, a little bit of the need for Hank’s continued approval.

Hank grinned and shook his head. “I sure do. But you might be onto something. Something that doesn’t involve parking our asses out here in the freezing cold.”

“I’d do that, too,” Connor said, earnest. “If that’s what it took.”

The smile stuck on Hank’s face. “I know. Just hanging on and not letting go—that counts for something, too.”

“It’s what you would do.”

Hank’s throat felt squeezed; he couldn’t talk just then. Instead, he nodded and patted Connor’s shoulder. Inside the car with the heat blasting, he asked, “You don’t think these guys will be able to tell you’re not, you know, decommissioned?”

Looking ahead, with a perfectly straight face, Connor said, “I can hold my breath for a long time.”

Hank turned, startled. “You can— _oh, for fuck’s sake_. I’d slap you upside your metal head, if—”

“If you didn’t like me so much,” Connor finished with that same mix of uncertainty and cheek.

“If I didn’t like you so much,” Hank said, sighing. Instead of a smack, he settled for ruffling the dark hair that was still slightly out of sorts from the night before.

According to the CyberLife interactive ‘link site, it really was as easy as it seemed to have an android shut off and hauled out like trash. Of course, Hank couldn’t put in a _real_ request; whether he liked it or not, Connor was still very much a part of the company’s neural network. And Hank certainly hadn’t bought him. Before, he hadn’t given the idea much thought, considering he’d never have that kind of cash. But now it sat like lead in his gut.

Luckily, it was easy enough for Connor to work his brain-hack magic and set Hank up with a fake profile and a fake android companion. He showed Hank the model he’d picked: white guy, dark hair. Good-looking and with a perfect build, of course...but it wasn’t _Connor_.

And thank God for that.

When Hank logged in to make the request, one of those annoying AI assistants popped up on the console. The avatar was a blonde woman—young, with big blue eyes and a heart-shaped face. Something to make straight guys’ hearts pump a little faster.

Connor leaned back and tilted his head when the AI introduced herself as Chloe.

“What is it?” asked Hank.

He shook his head. “Interesting choice. ‘Chloe’ is reportedly the name that Doctor Kamski chose for the first CyberLife prototype to achieve sentience. Or, possibly, she chose it herself. I doubt at that phase of development she looked much like this avatar, though.”

“Hm.” Hank kept any guesses about Kamski’s preferences to himself, considering what Connor had said. Maybe the first android had really been a hunk of plastic and wires, but decided after ‘waking up’ that she wanted to be the girl next door type. Maybe, at first, she wasn’t even a _she_. It was hard to keep from thinking that it all sounded like an old sci-fi comedy or maybe a porn vid: _guy who can’t get a date cooks up hot girl in his lab_.

He answered “Chloe’s” questions as quickly as possible. A lot of them were uncomfortable; it was hard to imagine plowing through the list and still wanting someone shut down at the end of it.

_What is the reason for your decommission request? Be as specific as you can._

_If you gave a name to your CyberLife android, what is it?_

She kept saying, _Keep in mind, you don’t have to answer. We only ask these questions so CyberLife can serve you better in the future_.

Hank said that his made-up android model had a glitch where it wouldn’t move for a long time, and it ( _he_ ) kept forgetting things. He skipped over the name question altogether.

Both he and Connor were shocked when they were able to schedule pick-up for that evening.

“I’m not leaving you in a damn bin by the road,” Hank said, feeling testy and unsettled.

The instructions that popped up after the request went in—and, luckily, after “Chloe” disappeared—said that Hank could leave “the chassis” in his garage. He wouldn’t even have to see or talk to the disposal crew.

Scowling, he shut off the console. “Fuck, I might be sick again.”

Connor put one hand lightly on Hank’s upper back, between his shoulder blades. “Would you like some water?”

He shook his head. “It’s like...what they used to do back when the U.S. still had the death penalty. Try to make it ‘humane.’ I know it’s probably better just to snap off than, you know, what happened to that girl. But seems like, on some level, it doesn’t matter how they go out. They’re still just as dead for just as shitty a reason.”

“Yes,” Connor said, then rubbed his palm up to Hank’s collar and down again.

Before leaving for his junkyard vigil, Hank checked and re-checked that his Dot was sticking; he’d even gone so far as to shave the patch where it would rest against his jaw. While pretending to be shut off, Connor could still “think” whatever he wanted right to the Dot. Hank was tempted to ask for a constant flow of words just to keep his nerves from jumping right through his skin. At the same time, he didn’t want to hear about how these assholes were handling what they thought of as human-shaped junk.

He put Sumo in the bedroom and shut the door, not so much for the protection of anyone else, but so the poor mutt wouldn’t have to see strangers dragging Connor out of the garage covered in one of Hank’s old sheets. The dog was absolutely heavy enough to go through a double-pane window if he was panicked.

Shit, _Hank_ was panicked. Everything felt wrong, even though before Hank had gotten in the car, Connor had slipped his pale hand out from under the sheet and shot him a thumbs-up, _Terminator_ -style.

It was hard to walk away from that half-open garage and the figure lying on the cold concrete. Probably not as hard as letting go of Luther’s body when the EMTs had finally managed to tear him away. But this felt _immediate_. And callous, too—like Hank was feeding Connor right into the lion’s mouth. That time, like every other time, it didn’t make things easier knowing that Connor could rip a lion in half, hypothetical or not.

 _Tell me when they get there,_ he subvocalized into the device as he drove the Tesla away.

 _I will, Hank_ , came the reply.

Down the street from the scrapyard, parked with engine off and his hands wrapped around a styrofoam cup of coffee, Hank sat for about a half hour before anything came over the Dot. It was too late to wonder whether Connor’s cortex communication could be picked up and tapped like a regular wireless call, or if anyone could tell it was happening.

 _The van is here_ , Connor broadcast.

Even though no one could hear, Hank stopped himself from replying.

_They removed the sheet. No identifying marks on the vehicle. There are two men, wearing street clothes. Facial rec IDs them as Lito Alvarez, born Carlos Alvarez, and Paul Gerber. Gerber has a disorderly conduct citation on his record. Alvarez has numerous unpaid parking tickets._

_That it?_ asked Hank.

 _For now_.

Another ten minutes went by.

Connor spoke softly; how the hell he could regulate the volume in his head was beyond Hank. _The van stopped briefly but no other models were picked up_.

 _Could be coffee?_ Hank said. He was sipping his own very slowly to avoid overloading his bladder. The specter of that overdue prostate test cropped up again. _Maybe a piss break_ , he added.

_Maybe. The walls of the rear compartment are reinforced, like armored transport. It’s difficult to hear._

_Either it’s in case CyberLife made a mistake, or they use that van to haul the modded androids to Eden_.

 _Possible_. _We are close to the intersection of Belair Road and State Route Forty. I can still calibrate our approximate location, but getting an exact fix is difficult._

Hank pushed his anxiety down. _Keep me posted_.

After a few minutes, Connor reported that they were headed southbound. That put Hank a little more at ease; there might be a pick-up around the Patterson Park area, which had gentrified a lot since the early twenty-first century.

Connor couldn’t have been thinking the same thing, but only a minute or two later he piped up on Hank’s Dot: _Moving to the southeast._

 _You on Forty?_ Hank asked.

_Possibly. We’ve picked up speed._

_Tell me if you head west toward Highlandtown._

_East,_ Connor chimed in at once. _You might see the van soon._

Hank pulled in a deep breath. He set the coffee, lukewarm now, in the cupholder beside him.

_Bypassing Pulaski. Picking up speed again. Might merge onto the Beltway southeast._

There wasn’t any fear in Connor’s soft head-voice, but Hank read it there, anyway. They had driven right past the scrapyard.

“Fuck,” he said aloud. “Stay in contact, Connor. Keep telling me what’s happening.” Interstate 695 jagged sharply out from the city limits at its southeastern end, running along the little inlet called Back River and looping all the way around working-class Dundalk before vaulting over the harbor on the Key Bridge. Hank didn’t want to let them get that far.

“I’m coming after you,” Hank said, knocking the car into gear. “Don’t stop talking.”

_Okay, Hank. We’re on the beltway. Traffic is light._

Working a hunch, Hank hauled ass up 40 to 95, then screamed through the cloverleaf and pushed the car hard down Dundalk Avenue.

Connor confirmed his guess a minute or two later. _Exiting near one-fifty-one. Could be the shipyard._

Hank swore loudly again. “Headed there now,” he told Connor. He was weaving through traffic, hoping to avoid getting snagged by patrol. Any uniform in the area would let him off; unlike the protesters and the civilian justice warriors, departments across the state had backed Hank for popping a cop-killer. The police union had paid for his lawyer. He just couldn’t afford the delay of getting pulled over.

 _Stopping_ , came Connor’s voice. _Near Wharf Road. Nothing here. Going to try_ —

Hank waited a couple of seconds. He tapped his Dot. “Connor?” Tap again. “Connor! Connor, talk to me!”

 _Gunshots_.

The word made Hank’s blood freeze. He stomped on the accelerator through a hard left onto Dunmanway to get over to the Peninsula Expressway. Any further down Dundalk Avenue would put him on the toll road.

Connor spoke. It was all so eerily quiet; if the men were firing on him, Hank couldn’t hear. He wasn’t tapped into Connor’s senses. _Enhanced rounds; penetrated the steel in a few places._ Another excruciating pause.

_Hank._

Hank shouted into the car, the sound bouncing around—loud even for a half-deaf bastard like him. He slammed his palm into the steering wheel. After that, aside from road noise, everything was silent. For a second or two, before he drove the car onto the semicircle of Wharf Road, he considered calling a unit in. But what in the hell would he say?

The Tesla was roaring down the little access road that ran parallel to a creek—more of a ditch, really—when Hank spotted the dark hump of a vehicle stopped down the now-deserted Strip Mill Road. The car’s tires spun on gravel.

_Fuck, he wished he had his sidearm._

Hank slammed on the brakes by what passed for a curb and was out of the driver’s seat and running, the car beeping its high-pitched reminders about headlights and open doors. “Connor!” he called, dashing as fast as he could move his ass toward the van.

There was something by one of the back tires. A dark lump. The brief flash of a white sneaker on a foot that wasn’t moving. The rear compartment from about waist-level up looked like Swiss cheese.

Hank called for Connor again, moving toward the open, empty cab.

Connor stood up from where he was crouched by the vehicle’s front bumper. There were dark splotches on the right side of his face.

It was easy to tell, even in the low light, that it was human blood. Connor’s hands were streaked with blood, too.

One gouge underneath the point of his left cheekbone leaked blue thirium. “Don’t touch anything,” he said.

Hank barreled forward and pulled him, spatter and all, into a fierce hug that would have crushed the breath out of a human.

Clearly, it caught Connor off guard. “I meant on the truck,” he said, half-muffled by the collar of Hank’s jacket. “Your DNA.” After a moment, he rested his gore-streaked hands against Hank’s back. “I’m all right,” he said, almost a whisper. “I’m all right.”

Breathing hard, Hank clutched the back of Connor’s head, the soft hair sticky with blood. For the moment, he didn’t care. When he could back away, when he could force words through his clotted throat and make his eyes stop burning, Hank asked, “You weren’t hit, were you?”

Connor shook his head. He twisted away, almost like a toddler, when Hank swiped a thumb underneath the scrape on his cheek.

“What’s this?” Hank asked. He was having serious trouble getting his pulse under control.

“Probably glass.”

After Connor said that, Hank finally looked over his shoulder. The windshield was smashed in over the steering wheel. Streaks of blood amid a litter of shards trailed down the snub hood of the van. Hank both did and didn’t want to see what was crumpled on the tarmac just out of his line of sight.

Connor had backed away and was inspecting his knuckles. He winced slightly as he pulled a sliver of glass from between two of them.

Hank rubbed the bright blue thirium between his thumb and second finger. The fact that he wasn’t still terrified hadn’t yet caught up. And despite his almost constant worry for Connor’s well-being, he hadn’t actually imagined him getting injured, even if it was minor. “What happened?” he asked.

“They made us,” Connor said flatly. “I can’t think it was anyone other than Preston Barber. He might have given the team a physical description of me. It’s quite likely, after our interrogation this morning, that he anticipated a move like this.”

Hank scowled and looked away. He shouldn’t have gone along with Connor’s ridiculous plan in the first place. There were no more greenhorn detectives, no crop of rookie patrol officers who needed convincing that he wasn’t just a desk jockey past his prime.

Hank didn’t look too hard at any other reasons he might have to prove himself. The answer was obvious, and close. Maybe too close.

“At least we know he’s in with Andronikov,” Connor went on. “But it’s not clear how much he knows about the operation at the Eden Club.”

“Preston’s small-time,” Hank spat. “Andronikov’s the big fish. Now he knows we’re looking for him.”

“Bigger,” Connor countered. “Not the biggest.”

“No,” Hank said, irritated. “But any vice cop will tell you that the higher up the chain you go, the harder it is to take someone down. A Pablo Escobar type happens once in a lifetime. And it’s usually feds, not some local PD, who takes them down.”

Connor stood silent.

Hank watched his jaw muscles work under the blood-spattered skin.

“Then we should give up,” he said.

Hank turned, unable to look at his face anymore. “No. That’s not what I said. It’s just—” He clenched his fists. He had to quickly crush an urge to shout his frustration into the quiet night. Through the dark that surrounded them came the faint sound of water lapping at the sides of the shipyard’s deep berths. “I don’t...I _can’t_ —” When Hank turned, Connor was standing at his shoulder. He clutched Connor’s face: one cheek blue, the other red. “I need you safe.”

Calmer now, Connor placed one bloody palm on Hank’s wrist. He bowed his head.

Hank felt the soft brush of a stray lock of hair a second before Connor’s forehead met his.

“Then trust me,” Connor told him.

Hank exhaled hard.

“Trust me like I trust you, Hank. I’m not Luther. But this is all either of us has.”

For the first time in years—in fact, Hank couldn’t ever remember having had this thought after he and Luther were partnered up—what he wanted to say was, _I don’t want Luther._ It shook Hank deeply, not because it felt like a betrayal of Luther’s memory, but because it was the truth.

What he said was, “I will. I _do_.”

Far off, along the loop of the Beltway, a siren sounded. It served well enough to jolt Hank out of his short stupor. He raised his head. “We should go. And take the guns. We can figure out later if they can be unlocked.”

Connor nodded. His expression was tight, but his eyes looked spacey, a little lost. Still, he turned and crouched by the dark form of the dead man.

Hank was glad he couldn’t see much. It looked like a pile of rags. Scraps of the body’s ripped windbreaker waved in the harbor breeze. The fact that Connor had probably put his fists right through the windshield and dragged the guy out over a fucking cheese grater of broken glass wasn’t something Hank really cared to think about. Popping his head inside the front cab, Hank scanned the floorboards and saw only spent shell casings. Using the sleeve of his jacket, he opened the center console compartment and the glove box, finding an extra clip and another pistol. He took both.

Connor had lifted the firearm off the other dead guy. When he was settled in the passenger seat of the Tesla, Hank drove them away from the blown-out van. Some shipyard workers were going to come across one hell of a surprise the next morning.

The ride home was silent.

Hank didn’t know the android equivalent of adrenaline—or if there even was one—but looking at Connor it was clear that the confrontation had taken a toll. His eyes were half-lidded, even though androids couldn’t get drowsy. Whatever was running through his head, Hank couldn’t guess and didn’t ask.

The blood would wash out of Connor’s suit, but Hank’s jacket was toast. Probably the shirt underneath, too. They took turns showering, Hank sitting on the edge of the bed in his jeans and undershirt, listening to the thrum of the water in the plastic tub.

When Connor came out, his hair was wet, damp clumps straggling across his brow and over his temples. He gave Hank a weary-looking smile.

“May I sit in here tonight?” he asked when Hank was climbing underneath the blankets.

“Yeah,” Hank said. “Sure.” He didn’t think he’d be able to do much sleeping—not after the events of that night and _especially_ not with Connor sitting by the bed, barely outlined in the dark against the drawn curtains.

But he did sleep, and for once he didn’t dream.

The persistent, low drone in his ear confused Hank when he woke. The call had almost cut off before he realized he’d never removed his Dot. He tapped it, answering with a slurred “Hello.”

“Morning, sunshine,” said Tina Chen. “Not that anyone in this city would know what sunshine is these days.”

Hank grunted and rolled over. The chair at the bedside was empty. “What you got?” he asked.

“A brand new corpse. Just for you.” Tina yawned audibly. “You’re welcome.”

Hank echoed the yawn on instinct. He’d once heard someone say that you could tell a sociopath if they failed to “catch” contagious gestures like that, but he was pretty sure it was bullshit. “I care why?”

“Because it’s another ‘head who somehow got hold of our favorite toxic plant.”

Sitting up was a struggle. Hank rubbed his eyes and underneath his nose. “Fuck. You getting any questions?”

There was a pause on the other end. “There’s nothing in my logs that would connect a high profile artist to any dead junkies, no.”

Hank blew out a long breath. “Thanks, Tina.”

“I should actually be thanking you.” Her tone was still a little grudging. “There isn’t much that scares the great Hank Anderson.”

“You’d be surprised, Doc.” From the other end of the house came the sound of the door opening and wind rushing in, along with a flurry of whuffing and yipping by Sumo. He got worked up like that when he was chasing things down. After a brief spike of concern, Hank figured Connor must have been out in the yard tossing sticks around. Maybe even one of the old slobber-coated rubber toys that lived out there like the world’s saddest lawn ornaments. The feeling it gave Hank was warm and constricting all at the same time. “Let’s talk face-to-face. Can you slot me in?”

“Sure,” said Chen. “Ayanna takes off for lunch at about eleven-thirty. Our guy’s in the cooler.”

“Right,” Hank said. “See you around then.”

“We’ll just be here,” came the reply. “Chillin’.”

Hank groaned. “Too early for that shit, Doc. Let me get some coffee down first.”

“Be good to you, Hank.” She signed off.

Hank wasn’t ready at all for the sight that greeted him as he walked into the kitchen. It was dark enough outside from the cloud cover that the light over the sink was needed. Standing underneath it were Sumo and Connor. Sumo had ice crystals throughout his fur that had turned to tiny beads of water. It would be a deluge if he decided on a good shake. But for the moment, his attention was trained on Connor, who dangled a strip of raw bacon above the dog’s twitching snout.

Connor turned his head, looking supremely guilty—and very windblown. Clearly, he hadn’t done anything to tame his hair since washing in the night before, and it flopped in a messy, piecey spill over his forehead. He had the sleeves of Hank’s big sweatshirt rolled up, making his wrists look even thinner, his hands longer. If he had blood, he would have been flushed from the cold. He didn’t even _feel_ the cold, but had an old scarf of Hank’s wrapped around his neck even so. Being caught giving Sumo an illicit treat hadn’t completely wiped the joyful grin from his face.

Hank stopped short of clutching his chest.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Sumo popped up onto his hind legs and snatched the bacon, setting right away to chewing sloppily.

“Oops,” Connor said, trying a little shrug.

It was useless trying not to smile. In fact, Hank’s grin was so sudden and wide it hurt his face. “He gets food poisoning, you’re cleaning it up,” he told Connor. The grumpy tone he tried for failed, too.

Sumo looked over at Hank like he knew exactly whose fault it was that no more bacon was coming.

Hank shook his head. “Don’t stare at me like that, mutt.”

“Bacon?” Connor asked.

“If it’s cooked.” After checking the water levels, Hank poked the brew button on the coffee machine. It was so tempting not to think about the dead man in the cooler at the morgue, the limp and shredded corpses and their bombed-out van by the waterfront. Or, more dangerously, to think of them as ruts in a smoother road—as if his and Connor’s days were spent like _this_ instead of wrapped up in fear and uncertainty. Stupid, Hank thought, to expect it to be like that when the rest of his life had been the same: only little bright points like those lights that flash and fade over a nighttime swamp.

At the least, he decided to put off talking about Doc Chen’s call until after breakfast. He sat down with a mug of the good stuff and held onto Sumo’s collar with one finger while swabbing water off his coat with a dish towel.

The smell of frying meat filled the kitchen.

Connor was humming something, very low. Probably didn’t even know he was doing it.

“Leonard Cohen again?” Hank asked.

Startled, Connor turned. “Oh. No. Someone named Cole Porter. Do you know him?”

“Heard the name,” Hank said. “You got weird tastes, kid.”

Connor tilted his chin. “ _You_ listen to a group called ‘Dying Fetus.’”

Hank scowled. “I can’t be this handsome _and_ cultured. Hearts would break worldwide.” He waved a hand. “Don’t burn my bacon.” When he looked back, Connor was staring intently at the contents of the pan.

On the way downtown to the M.E.’s office with Connor in the passenger seat, Hank realized that Doc Chen hadn’t met Connor, didn’t even know about him. It was too late and too weird to call, but as expected, Chen did a double take when Hank showed up with what looked like a strange young man in a business suit in tow.

“Who’s this?” she asked, keeping the heavy back door propped open with one petite foot. The freezing wind whipped her hair around her face and her lab coat around her hips, but it was pretty obvious neither of them was getting past into the relative warmth until she got answers.

“This is the guy who identified the abrin,” Hank said, shuffling his feet. With blood all over his jacket, he was freezing his nuts off in a half-zip fleece sweatshirt.

Chen gave another wary look over Hank’s shoulder, but she ushered them into the tiled hallway. “You a toxicologist?” she asked Connor. “Chemist?”

“I’m an android, Doctor Chen.”

Her eyes went wide.

Hank hid a snicker behind his closed fist. He cleared his throat.

“How did you…?” Chen started.

“Remember how the court wanted me monitored?” he asked. “This is the monitor. Connor.” Connor’s expression gave nothing away, but Hank still said, “Got a great cop sense, as it turns out. A real eye.”

“For trouble,” Chen filled in. She’d picked up on Hank’s usual M.O. a long time ago, and a lot faster than he’d nailed down most perps’.

Hank guessed it was just as much a warning to Connor as anything else. “And he’s my friend,” he added, pushing a hand through his wind-tangled hair.

It was apparently enough. “Okay, Connor,” Chen said. “Good to meet you. I’m going to assume you’re up to speed with all this?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Connor said, his hands clasped behind his back.

Chen rolled her eyes. “Oh, Jesus.” She elbowed Hank gently in the gut. “Save the ‘ma’am’ for when I’m _his_ age.” Spinning on her heel, she marched into the autopsy suite.

Hank tilted his head and motioned for Connor to follow her. There was a body on one of the exam tables, still zipped into a translucent bag. He watched Connor look over at it as they passed. It was hard to keep from thinking that if the night before had gone differently, this would have likely been the first time Connor had seen a dead human up close. Something that was past the point of dragging back from the dark.

It was a sharp and nasty feeling knowing that his first brush with it was as a killer, regardless of self defense.

Cold air puffed out in a little cloud when Chen opened one of the small metal doors. Casters roared and an ash-colored corpse came out on the metal tray: a knobby-kneed guy with lank dreadlocks. His lips had pulled back from his teeth, which often happened in sub-freezing temperatures. The effect never failed to creep Hank the fuck out, though.

The guy looked to be anywhere from forty-five to fifty at first look. Dehydration, like from dumping fluids after the abrin hit, could make skin look thinner and seem to hang off the bones. Hank had seen it before. But this dead dude still had some baby fat on his cheeks and belly; he couldn’t have been more than twenty-seven.

“Shit,” Hank said softly.

“Yeah,” Chen said. “My gut tells me he wasn’t a long-time user. Maybe recreational. Maybe a Magpie, but only just.”

“Nowhere close to burnout,” Hank finished.

“Only a small amount of the toxin is needed to cause death,” Connor said. “It varies depending on the route of exposure.”

Chen raised her eyebrows. “You got it. The abrin level was almost undetectable in this case.” She paused. “Maybe you already knew that?”

Connor looked over at Hank, badly concealed panic on his face like he’d fucked up royally.

“Christ, Doc,” Hank cut in, “I keep telling you you’re too curious for your own good. It killed the cat. I’d prefer if you didn’t take the same route.”

“Satisfaction brought him back,” Connor said.

“Huh?”

“That’s how the proverb ends,” he said. “‘Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back.’”

Chen gave an approving nod and poked her thumb in Connor’s direction. “I like this kid.”

Hank had been about to tell her _I was just trying to protect you_ when he remembered exactly what Connor had made of that sentiment. It was stupid to think he could shield everyone from everything and, even if it ended up impossible for him not to feel responsible. It was even dumber to blame himself when somebody took what he’d told them and wandered straight into trouble. He put a hand on Connor’s shoulder. “Tell Doc here about Carl Manfred.”

A few moments of shocked silence followed after Connor finished his run-down of the visit with Carl and Ralph, the network feed of Ralph’s last moments, Carl’s death.

“I guess you weren’t kidding,” Chen finally said. She breathed out hard, a frustrated sound. “ _Damn_. I wish I’d gotten a chance to take a look at that body before they hauled it off to New York. I think I can take your word for it, though.”

“Not mine,” Hank said. “Connor’s.”

Connor flashed him a brief, grateful smile.

“Did this guy get shot up with the abrin like Manfred?” asked Hank.

“No visible puncture wounds,” said Chen. “Don’t the Magpies usually take their sten in pill form?”

Frowning, Hank scratched his chin. “I think so. I’ve never heard of injectable sten.”

“What about transdermal delivery?” Connor put in.

“Like a patch?”

“Or nanosol,” Chen said. “They give kids vaccines that way. Apparently.” She quirked a half-smile at Hank. “I think we feel the same about kids, Detective. Anyway, the applicator pushes nanoparticles of antigen—or _whatever_ —through the dermis and into the bloodstream. Same efficacy, less screaming.”

Hank sniffed. “Yeah, when I was a kid it was still needles. Never screamed, though, ‘cause I knew I’d get smacked for it.” He looked over to Connor, startled to see something like worry written on his face.

“Well,” said Chen, “the toxin in nanosol doser would have resulted in a quicker death than ingestion. I’m honestly not sure I could tell which way this poor fellow went.”

“It might not matter,” said Hank. He asked Chen, “Do you have an ID?”

“Haven’t run DNA yet.”

“Facial recognition identifies him as Jamal Trevor Hassan,” said Connor. “Currently enrolled as a student at Maryland Institute College of Art.”

Hank shook his head. “Fucking art students.”

Chen was giving an appraising nod to Connor. “Damn convenient function you’ve got there, son.”

He smiled softly, but said, “Don’t call me ‘son,’ and I won’t call you ‘ma’am.’”

With a raucous laugh that rang through the room, Chen slugged Connor on the bicep. “Touché. You’re hilarious.”

“Keep us posted if you find out anything else?” Hank asked her.

“Sure will.” She paused, somber now. “Gotta think of a way to write this up.”

Hank nodded. “Looks like we’ll be keeping an eye out for a new form of the drug making the rounds.”

“Looks like it,” Chen said. She turned toward Connor. “Nice to meet you.” With a small hand on his shoulder, she added, “Keep an eye on that asshole, huh? Don’t let him drive you crazy.”

Connor nodded.

“And don’t let him kill himself, either,” she said. “Badge or not, he’s good for this city.”

“I know,” said Connor.

When both of them were in the car, Hank sat trying to map out the paths they’d taken up until then. Everything obviously led somewhere: the poisoned sten, the android chop shop, Carl and Ralph’s murders. He just couldn’t be sure at that point if _all_ of those led to the same place. What could the Magpies and their “angels” have to do with City Hall? With deviant androids? How the hell did an underground murder-for-kicks operation relate to the drug trade? How was Markus Brandt involved? Or CyberLife?

Connor looked about as concerned as Hank felt. What he said when Hank looked over, though, came directly out of left field. “Were your parents unkind to you?” he asked.

Hank blinked, processing. “The fuck?”

Looking down at his lap, Connor said, “What you told Doctor Chen. Would they really hit you— _hurt_ you—if you were in distress?”

“I was joking.” It wasn’t true, and it didn’t sound particularly believable, even to Hank’s ears.

“Okay.”

With a heavy sigh, Hank pushed his fingers through his hair. “Jesus, Connor.”

Connor’s voice was soft and measured. “Androids are like children. In some ways. More intellectually sophisticated, yes. But at the same time, we’re programmed to ignore...degradation. No—to _accept it_. Our creators made us stronger, but also submissive by nature. We’re more fortunate than children, because we can choose not to feel emotion when we are abused. And we are harder to physically damage. Andronikov takes those things away from us, makes us helpless. Thinking about humans—or anyone—hurting weaker beings...it makes me angry. So angry that I don’t know where to put all of it. It seems so...huge.” His hands, resting on his thighs, curled into fists and then unclenched again, over and over. “When I think about someone...hurting _you_...it makes me angry.”

Hank’s face was burning; it felt like he’d been caught out in a lie even though that wasn’t really the case. “I’m not a kid. I haven’t been for a real long time.”

“I know.” Another long pause. Then, Connor said, “You’re a good man, Hank. I want to be a good—” he stopped, searching for a word that might not even exist.

Looking through the windshield at the tops of pine trees whipping around in frantic circles, Hank gave another sigh. “It’s not like it is in the movies. Being a good guy. They don’t give you medals or parades. Sometimes you lose. A _lot_ of times, you lose. Maybe you die on the street, drowned in your own blood. There are these little windows of happiness; they open and then shut again. It might be better to get cut down in the middle of one than see it end and have to go on afterwards. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know because it isn’t the end.” The statement was a little childish, but maybe Connor was, too.

Hank had been forced to grow up pretty quick, but even so, not in a matter of _days_.

“I’ve been happy before,” said Connor.

“Yeah?”

He finally looked up. “This morning. I was happy this morning. I played fetch with Sumo, fed him bacon. The house smelled good, even with a wet dog in it.” He let his gaze drop. “I made you laugh.”

Hank smiled and blinked again. His eyes stung. He sniffed hard, glad Connor had looked away. “Hang onto that,” he said. “You know, for a rainy day.”

“Rain doesn’t bother me.”

Still smiling, shaking his head, Hank said, “Yeah. It’s an expression. A human one. Maybe they’ll make up some android sayings sometime soon.”

The sky rumbled with thunder that never seemed to get closer as Hank steered the car toward the Gallery. Whether or not it was connected to anything bigger, he could at least warn the Magpies about the the tainted supply. He didn’t relish the idea of being out in a cold that wouldn’t let up and wouldn’t break with either snow or rain, but the sad, unlit tents would at least cut the wind a little.

Connor had put on his half-mask and cap. When they got out of the car near the park, he shot a quick look Hank’s way as Hank shivered and rubbed his frigid hands together, but said nothing about it.

Unfortunately, waking up dozing Magpies with an insane-sounding threat had just about the effect Hank thought it would. As he and Connor made their way through the Gallery, most people waved them away, irritated or drowsy. The ones who listened were only half there, the rest of their whirring little junkie brains fixated on the next high.

Near the northwestern edge of the Gallery, Hank was looking in on a couple of lumps huddled in sleeping bags inside a soap-bubble of a tent when he heard Connor call his name. He whirled toward the sound and was off, catching up with Connor in time to see a guy in a shiny puffer coat and an orange hoodie struggling to bear up another man who was only barely on his feet and weaving like a drunk.

“That’s him,” Connor hissed, pointing.

“Who?”

“The man who was watching me. In the car.”

“Shit,” Hank said. “Hey!” he called, setting out at a fast walk toward where he’d seen the two men slip behind a lilac-colored tent.

When they came out again, the man in the hoodie was dragged down almost to one knee. He looked to be whispering in the other’s ear.

“Hey, you!” Hank called again.

Hoodie turned, letting his grip go slack, showing a pale, lean face and light eyes. The other man clung to his jacket. He was only wearing a single layer: a white shirt with one long sleeve torn up to the elbow, bright against his dark skin.

“Stop!” Connor shouted, kicking into a jog. His voice was dampened by the mask.

Hoodie took off running, letting White Shirt drop like a rock.

“Grab him!” Hank yelled to Connor, who went after him, quickly gaining ground. Hank reached White Shirt in a few steps. He remembered getting hold of the guy’s wrist, but the second afterward he was sailing through the air then landing hard on his left side on the packed dirt. He rolled, coughed, and tried to shout. “Android!” It came out as a breathy wheeze.

The android had thrown him off, but clearly wasn’t able to do much more. When Hank turned, he was trying to get his feet under him. All he could manage were a couple of steps before pitching head-first onto the ground. Hank didn’t want to try to touch him again. He raised his head, scanning the field.

Connor was half-leading, half-dragging Hoodie back to where Hank stood.

When they got closer, Hank saw the guy had a dirty scuff on his cheek and a trail of blood from what was probably a busted nose. He’d have a shiner, if not a matching set, in a couple of hours. “He’s an android,” Hank told Connor.

Hoodie cut in. “I know. He’s experiencing some sort of neurocortical event, but I can’t diagnose him in this state.”

Hank squinted. “You an android doctor or something?”

The guy squared his shoulders. He was almost as tall as Connor, and not scrawny, but obviously couldn’t compete with android strength. “Something, yes,” he said, dabbing with two fingers at the blood on his upper lip. He looked at Hank. “I designed him.”

Hank was almost knocked sideways. “You _what_?” He looked over at Connor, who had pulled down his mask and was also staring at Hoodie, dumbfounded.

The guy pulled the hood off, revealing dark hair combed back and knotted at the point of his skull. It was only long on top; the remainder of his hair at the sides and back was shaved almost down to the skin. He looked at Connor. “If I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have run.”

Connor let him loose, almost as if the sweatshirt was hot and burned his palms. “Doctor Kamksi?”

“To some,” Kamski said. “I’d rather it didn’t get around.”

“Are you fucking serious right now?” Hank asked.

“I’m so sorry,” Connor said. It was almost a wail. He wrung his hands desperately.

Kamski put a hand on his bicep. “You couldn’t have known. I wanted it that way.”

Hank snorted. “Yeah? Why’s that, asshole?”

“Hank!” Connor pleaded.

“No,” said Hank, holding up a hand. “I want this guy to explain what the fuck is going on. Why were you following us? Following _him_? What are you doing in Baltimore?”

“I _will_ explain.” Kamski’s eye twitched briefly. “But we need to get him somewhere safe.” He shouldered past a still-stunned Hank and crouched by the android’s side. Kamski interlaced his fingers with the android’s, clearly able to get through to him by some unspoken signal.

It lit a tiny spark of jealousy in Hank’s chest.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Connor.

“He may be in the process of deviating,” Kamski said. “We’re still trying to understand the mechanism. The trigger or triggers appear to be highly individualized—possibly _personal_ —varying from android to android, and even within model ranges.” He craned his neck to look backward at Connor. “Can you help?”

At once, Connor nodded, moving around to the opposite side and hooking his hands under the android’s arms.

When he came to his feet, borne up by Connor and Kamski, his eyelids fluttering, Hank saw it was the same model android that he and Connor had seen running in the park. God, that seemed like two lifetimes ago now.

They hadn’t dragged the faltering android two steps, though, when he went completely stiff, eyes rolling upward and showing nothing but blank white.

It was spooky in the extreme. Hank stepped back.

The android convulsed a couple of times, his perfect teeth clacking like one of those freaky wind-up toys. Then he went limp.

Connor lowered him gently to the ground.

Kamski put his palm underneath the android’s shirt, just below where a human breastbone would be. “The thirium pump is no longer functional. He’s been decommissioned.” He stood up, tense, scanning the horizon as if looking for a sniper or spy.

That made Hank paranoid as hell. He touched the lump that the stolen gun made under his sweatshirt. Then he pulled up the collar around his cheeks and grabbed Kamski’s arm. “You’re not done talking. But we’ve got to get out of here.”

Kamski struggled against him. “Wait! The cortex! I need it!”

“I’ll get it,” Connor said.

Onlookers were starting to drift closer.

Kamski allowed Hank to haul him away from the android’s corpse. Connor jogged to catch up with them, the tiny neurocortex in hand.

When they reached the car, Kamski refused to get in at first. “I’m not comfortable taking you to the headquarters. Not yet.”

That made Hank scoff again. “‘Headquarters.’ Okay, James Bond. We’re not going there, anyway. We’re doing this on my turf.” He was pretty sure Connor was giving him a disapproving look, but he didn’t turn to check it out. Kamski showing up out of nowhere after creeping around on the sidelines was suspicious as hell. And Hank wanted to know what—if anything—he knew about the operation at the Eden Club. If he had a clue and hadn’t stepped in, Hank decided then and there that he’d break Kamski’s face all over again.

While Hank drove, Connor swiveled in his seat to face their passenger. “Doctor Kamski, would you give me your hand, please? Your right hand.”

Hank glanced into the rear view mirror to see what CyberLife’s runaway founder thought about that request.

When Connor grabbed Kamski’s wrist and closed his mouth over the man’s index and middle fingers, Hank almost ran off the road.

“The hell are you doing?” he asked, appalled.

“Please watch the road, Hank,” Connor said. He had released Kamski’s hand.

In the rear seat, Kamski’s face showed intrigued—maybe even a little amused.

Watching Connor roll the dried blood around in his mouth for a moment made Hank’s stomach lurch.

“He’s telling the truth,” Connor told Hank. “His DNA matches the profile still on record at CyberLife for Elijah Kamski.”

Despite it being the most disturbing DNA test Hank could imagine, the fact that that was all it was gave him a little relief.

“You surgically altered your appearance,” Connor said.

“A necessity,” Kamski told him. “I had to disappear. And reappear, of course.”

“You still haven’t told us why,” Hank said.

Narrowing his eyes, Kamski leaned forward. He rested his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers like an honest-to-Pete mad scientist.

Hank was almost totally sure it was only for effect. _Goddamn drama queen_.

“Baltimore appears to be the epicenter of the deviancy outbreak.”

“And you’re here to cure it?” asked Hank.

Sitting back, Kamski said, “No. I don’t see deviancy as a fault. Quite the contrary. It could be...an evolutionary stage.”

“Well, your company seems to think different.” That got an unexpected reaction when Hank glanced into the rear view again.

“Yes,” Kamski said. He looked devastated, almost in tears. It was immediate and startling. The guy had an expressive face, but Hank still couldn’t figure out how much of it was theatrics. “I’ve got more to tell you, and I don’t believe either of you will like what I have to say.”

Back at the house, Hank forgot for a moment that Sumo might be a problem. He was so used to it just being Connor and himself that on opening the door, he had to lunge forward and grab the dog’s collar before he closed his grizzly bear jaws on Kamski’s arm. It was almost as funny watching Kamksi flinch back and clutch himself as it had been watching Gavin Reed do the same.

“If you let him sniff your hand, he’ll calm down,” Connor said. He crouched beside a still-growling Sumo and whispered to him, stroking his forehead.

“Sorry for the mess,” Hank said, “it’s just that I don’t care.” That time, he got a full-on look at Connor’s disapproval. Maybe it _was_ time to tone it down. But Kamski’s attitude bugged him as much as Connor’s initial hero-worship of the guy. And he didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him. All said, given the chance, he could probably chuck the dweeb a good few feet, even with Kamski being tall and twenty years younger.

Still, he decided not to antagonize Connor. “I’ll put some coffee on. It’s not top quality, but it’s hot.”

“Thank you,” Kamski said, eyeing Sumo.

They ended up settled at the kitchen table, Hank and Kamski with mugs of black coffee, Connor with Sumo sticking close to his side, leery.

“If I had been able to see your face, I wouldn’t have run from you,” Kamski repeated, speaking to Connor. “I recognized you right away.”

“Did you...make me?” Connor asked.

“Mostly,” said Kamski. “Your line was meant to be a prototype for a law enforcement adjunct. I see my successor continued that vision.” He paused to take a sip of the coffee, grimacing.

Hank chewed at his cheek, but stayed quiet.

“It isn’t the use I envisioned,” Kamski went on. “And I certainly didn’t foresee such an...unusual partnership with the city.”

“What, the monitor thing?” Hank asked.

Kamski took a breath, then shook his head. “Hunting down deviants.”

Connor sat back, shocked. “I...I don’t—I only confronted one because I was certain he would hurt Hank...hurt _us_.”

Another shake of Kamski’s head. “Not _you_. The one before you. He had your face, your construction. But not your cortex.”

Cold dread was rapidly seeking into Hank’s chest.

Connor looked shaken. His lower lip was trembling. “I don’t understand. There was another Connor?”

“I don’t know what he called himself.”

Panic welled up in Connor’s voice. “How do you—how do you know this isn’t the same body? That I’m not the same android with a new cortex?”

Kamski stared into the space between Connor and Hank, obviously not comfortable looking at either of them. His voice hitched. “I know because I destroyed both. When I shot him in the head.”


	14. Interlude: March 2047

They hadn’t given Hank a choice. He’d be lead pallbearer: Luther’s casket hefted onto his right shoulder, one white-gloved hand tight on the brass rail. Looking back, he would appreciate how calmly Fowler had doled out the honor guard roles for the service.

Well, maybe he’d only been calm around _Hank_. Like he was the injured party. Like there wasn’t already a grieving widow who had shared more with, and depended more on, Luther’s presence.

Maybe what Hank had mistaken for calm was the fog that had hung over everything in the days between Luther’s death and his funeral.

It made the world look covered with a smeary lens from the moment Hank woke up. His ears felt the same as they had the day after he’d staked out a spot next to the stage left amp stack at Maryland DeathFest. There could have been air horns going constantly next to his head and he would barely have registered it. If there had been a fire alarm in... _anywhere,_ Hank would have ended up Kentucky fried.

That would have been welcome.

At least, he thought, he wouldn’t be the one handing Kara the folded flag. And he could be sure as fuck nobody was giving him a gun.

It was cold on the day of. So Christing cold. Hank hadn’t expected to feel it, owing to the numbness up until that point. But the polyester gloves did nothing; the metal burned his hand. It was only that pain and the incredible heft of the casket—even on the shoulders of the six biggest guys in BPD—that kept Hank from misstepping or weaving out of formation.

So cold and so bright. The whole line of them squinted into the white day: Fowler and then-Commissioner Stern at the lead, the bearers, the firing party, the flag team. Ashleigh Tillman was still mayor. A couple years older than Hank, she’d made headlines for having grown up blind. She got biosynthetic eyes at the age of thirty and learned to bend her brain around the new power of sight with barely a pause in her political climb. Tillman would go on to win the seventh district seat in the U.S. House, joining Shaun Cummings (born Shauna Cummings)—the grandson of longtime Maryland congressman Elijah Cummings. Even one of Maryland’s senators, Rosario Gutierrez, walked in the procession, with her square-cut coat and a hat sewn with pearls pulled over her trademark buzz cut.

Kara was in an unmarked car, too heavily pregnant to walk without wincing.

Hank heard the beats on the snare as they wound through Oak Lawn Cemetery. He watched white clouds of breath float up, and didn’t think about anything else.

While standing at the side of the hole in the ground and the polished box almost as dark as the dirt underneath it, he managed to keep from breaking down. Listening to stupid Bible platitudes that Luther would have laughed at, and even watching Kara’s swollen eyes and swollen face above the collar of the black coat that split open over her belly, he held it in.

But then the goddamn bagpipes kicked in—a brittle, fluttery sound with no real tune. Hank bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. He curled numb fingers hard into his palms. None of it stopped the tears.

They steamed and then froze on his cheeks and in his beard. Kara was looking over at him, seeing more than Hank ever wanted her to. It wasn’t that he cared about breaking down in front of her.

He didn’t want her to see that _he_ knew it should have been him in that box.

Hank pulled his shit together enough after the three-volley salute to go over to her. The people nearby stepped away, looking down at Hank’s polished shoes as they went.

Kara’s thin little ankles were swollen in their black tights. Her black purse lay by one foot. She’d dropped the folded colors right on the fake turf lining the lip of the hole. The flag had unfurled halfway down into the grave.

“Kara,” he said.

She held up her puffy hand, blotched with red. No glove. “Don’t.”

Hank flinched, caught off guard. “Can I—?”

“There is nothing I want from you, Hank Anderson,” she said, staring over the casket and into the bare trees. “ _Nothing_. Leave.”

“I’ll come by…” he started again, but both of them knew he was headed into a lie.

Kara put a hand on her belly. “We’re taken care of.” Finally, she turned to look at him. Broken capillaries threaded through her eyes. At some point—or many—she had cried hard enough that they’d burst, one after another. “He didn’t believe in God,” she said. “I don’t know if I do, either. But I hope you find mercy somewhere, Hank. That’s something I can’t give you.”

One sob shook her like a seizure. Then she nudged the discarded flag into the hole with her foot and turned away.

Hank was on paid leave for the week after. He didn’t intend to last to the next day. Shit, he was already in full dress; might as well take his service revolver to bed and stay there until the bill collectors started calling or Fowler sent someone to check in—whichever happened first.

He drove the Tesla toward home, the gun in the passenger seat picking up the April light in its unforgiving lines. If he hadn’t taken Eastern past Joseph E. Lee Park instead of picking up I-95, he wouldn’t have seen the group of kids beating on the side of an abandoned house. There wasn’t a coat among them and a couple didn’t even have shoes.

When he parked and got out of the car, he heard one yell, “Fuck! It’s five-oh!”

That kid and two others dropped the sticks and tire irons they’d been holding and bolted. But the last one stayed, looking defiantly up at Hank as he walked over. He still held the splintery baseball bat in one hand.

“What’s going on, kid?” Hank asked.

“There’s a dog in there.” He pointed at the marked-up place they’d all been beating on, which Hank could see was a padlocked door in a makeshift addition to the house. “We was trying to get it out. Think the guy who was here left him.”

On cue, the door moved a couple of inches, padlock and latch rattling. Hank heard a thin whine from inside, then a heavy scratching against the wall. The air wafting out of the dark room reeked of shit.

Hank picked up what one of the kids had left: a skinny lead pipe. “I’m going to jam this right in that space there,” he told the kid. “When I say so, you hit the lock with your bat as hard as you can. Okay?”

The kid nodded.

Hank wrestled the cold pipe—cold as a brass rail—between the door and the wall, lodging it just above the creaking latch. “Now,” he said.

It took a couple tries, but the kid had some strength in those scarecrow arms. On the second hit, the screws popped out of the wood on the door side. Both Hank and the kid stumbled back.

A big, shaggy thing lunged out of the open door, blinking in the daylight. The light didn’t stop the dog from rearing right up and trying to get its front legs up on the kid’s shoulders. Acting on reflex, the kid yelped and dodged out of the way.

Its tail going like mad, the dog turned to Hank and plunked its filthy paws on his chest. It was straining upward, but not growling or snapping. When Hank lowered his hands to gently touch its matted ears, it began joyfully slobbering all over him, sticky doggy spit sliding in between his fingers.

“Damn,” the kid said. “He’s _huge_.”

It turned out the thing had a collar, or a length of nylon rope serving as one. Hank grabbed it and managed to push the excited dog down to the ground again. The front of his dress uniform was smeared with dirt and shit. “Jesus, mutt,” he said, “you stink.”

“Can I keep him?” asked the kid.

“Don’t think so.” With one hand holding the makeshift collar, Hank dug into his pocket with the other. He fumbled a fifty-dollar bill out of his wallet and handed it over. “Get a goddamn coat,” he said.

Showing a gap-toothed grin, the kid shoved the bill in his shorts and bolted.

“And some shoes!” Hank called after him.

The dog was all too happy to follow Hank to the car. It grunted and heaved itself up into the back seat. At least the seats were leather.

Ignoring the dirt, turds, and slobber now decorating his car, Hank led the huge dog to his front door. There was a garden hose outside, but it was still way too cold for that to work for either of them. Sighing, Hank goaded the dog along through his house and into the bathroom, half-pushing and half-lifting it into the tub.

The whole while, the dog was grinning like it was on a trail hike, heavy tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth.

In a few days, Hank would bring the dog to a veterinarian’s office, a place he’d never been in his life. The vet would tell him the dog was a purebred Saint Bernard, fairly young and big for his age, too. He’d lucked out of ticks or heartworms or any other awful pet parasite just by the fact of it being cold. Later, Hank would stand in a pet store for half an hour trying to choose a collar and leash until some poor, bored store employee took pity on him. He’d get a set of brass tags, too—laser-engraved. The clerk would ask what name he wanted on the tags and Hank would tell him _Sumo_ , because the damn dog grunted so much...and it was actually kind of funny.

But as for the afternoon of Luther Freeman’s funeral, Hank scrubbed the big dog down with his cheap shampoo and cut the mats out of his fur one by one with toenail scissors. He broke two plastic combs trying to straighten what fur was left and finally had to resort to using a dinner fork.

The process took four and a half hours, and by the time Hank was done, he and the dog were both damp and exhausted. Hank collapsed on the unmade bed and the damn dog followed right on up and flopped beside him, smacking its chops. He was too tired to protest.

It wouldn’t be until the next day that Hank realized he’d left the pistol he’d intended to kill himself with in the car.

And by then, thank God or whatever, he had other things to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sumo's discovery in this interlude is based partially based on a true story. It has a very sad beginning but a happy ending (TW animal cruelty). When I was a reporter for a local magazine in a small city in Upstate New York, I interviewed a single mother and her two kids about lead poisoning. As it turned out, they'd moved into the ramshackle house and there was a dog there. A dog that they'd never seen. The people who left the house had locked this poor dog into a dark room. The current tenants just tossed food in there. Thankfully, it didn't seem the dog had been there long. Determined to do something, I called my friend who worked for an animal rescue league. We sprang the dog free - a beautiful, happy, tail-wagging mutt - thankfully healthy despite the horrible conditions. I drove her to the shelter and met my friend's contacts. Despite not being house-trained, the dog was friendly and fairly socialized. Less than two weeks afterward, my friend told me she'd been adopted by a person who knew about her special situation. They named her Kira. Seeing as this was almost 20 years ago, it's possible Kira is no longer with us. But she went from what was probably certain death in one dark room to a house with a big yard and a family that loved her. I'll remember her until I die.


	15. Baltimore - November 2048

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think any characters are behaving in unexpected ways, give it some time. We still have a little way to go ;)

Hank and Connor could only sit in stunned silence.

There was no way to tell what Connor was going through, but a big chunk of what Hank felt was gratitude. At least it hadn’t been _this one_ , with _this mind_ and _these experiences_.

He’d be lying through his teeth if he said he hadn’t developed a feeling of protectiveness toward Connor.

_His_ Connor.

Fuck, it had tipped right over into possessive, but Hank didn’t dwell on it because he didn’t have the luxury just then. That was a good thing; otherwise, his brain might end up leaking out his ears.

“We were very lucky that I was there,” Kamski was saying. He looked over at Connor. “Your line was a prototype in the initial stages of development. I knew your face, though. I always see you in my mind before I start my work.”

Hank had to fight hard against the urge to roll his eyes. _You could take the genius out of the trillion-dollar company, but…_ “That’s great,” he said, waving his hand. “Who’s ‘we?’”

Kamski narrowed his eyes, obviously put out by the redirect. “Deviant androids and those of us who help them. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Baltimore is effectively deviant ground zero.”

“Well, I just got aware,” Hank said. He did have to admit, grudgingly, that Kamski’s little group had done a decent job of keeping their rebellion under the radar. Deviance, as far as the BPD knew, was still an urban legend.

Well, at least as far as the rank-and-file knew. If someone in City Hall was buying CyberLife prototypes and sending them out against the deviant hordes, Hank figured there was no way in hell they could have managed to hide it from Amanda Stern. She was a fucking bloodhound and had been from day one. If nothing else, she would have followed the money and found out sooner rather than later.

“A prototype for what purpose?” Connor asked.

Kamski gave a mirthless smile. “Law enforcement. Go figure. At the time, I thought the line could take over SWAT and riot control operations. A faster, sturdier, more reliable alternative to…” He trailed off into silence.

“To putting _real_ people in danger,” Hank finished.

“Part of the reason why I abandoned the project.” Kamski had lost some of his smugness. “I was surprised to learn—especially in such an unexpected way—that my successor had revived it.”

“So you’re not in touch with the guy running your company?” Hank asked.

Kamski tilted his chin, all the self-assurance rushing back. “What a positively millennial attitude, Mister—”

“Detective Anderson.” Hank’s words came out clipped and gruff.

“Mister Detective Anderson. My successor at CyberLife is not ‘a guy,’” Kamski said, “nor is she even human.”

Connor looked shaken.

Hank let out a disbelieving laugh. “An android is running the show. Fuck me.”

“Chloe,” Kamski said.

“The little avatar girl?” asked Hank. “From the website?”

“She’s so much more than that. Chloe was the first to achieve sentience and is still by far the most complex synthetic being in existence. Her depth and breadth of knowledge exceeds what I could ever gain—even in twenty lifetimes. Every individual byte of information about CyberLife is at her fingertips, so to speak. It was the perfect choice.”

“Yeah,” Hank said, leaning back in his chair, “until it wasn’t.”

It might have been actual pain that flickered across Kamski’s face just then. “We know the _why_ for the revival of the RK program. We just don’t know the _how_.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hank.

Kamski cleared his throat. “While we’ve sponsored charitable endeavors in the past, CyberLife is not—and never has been—a charity.” That humorless smile again, except this time it was served with an extra helping of condescension. “The City of Baltimore can’t afford an iFlex for every classroom, much less every child in its public schools. I doubt your pension is anything to brag about, either, Detective. Chloe may have made decisions I wouldn’t have, but she respects the bottom line. I can’t understand how a third-rate, debt-ridden city got hold of two—or more—units from a highly advanced prototype line.”

“We know,” Connor said softly. When Kamski turned, confused, he repeated, “We know how the city made the deal with CyberLife.”

Hank slapped his palm down on the tabletop to prevent Kamski from speaking. “So why don’t you shut up for a minute and listen,” he said. “And while you’re at it, how about not calling my partner a ‘unit?’ I don’t give a rat’s ass if you built him. The mayor’s a power-hungry nutjob, but she still had to call me ‘detective’ because I earned that badge. I think Connor’s earned a little more respect.”

Kamski put his hands up in mock surrender. “Fine. I’m listening.”

Connor looked over at Hank, uncertain. “I think maybe we should show him,” he said.

Hank nodded.

After seeing what happened to the girl at the Eden Club, Kamski was silent for the first time since they’d met him. He wore a grave expression as Connor explained their theories about how widely known the underground murder ring was and how much cash it pulled in for the city and the club. Hank went on to tell him about CyberLife’s new decommissioning policy, the mass grave at the scrapyard, their efforts to track down Andronikov.

It was that last piece of information that seemed to upset Kamski the most. He asked right away for all of the information Hank and Connor had on Andronikov—which wasn’t much. Connor did his little mind-transfer thing, sending over to Hank’s flex a few screenshots of the murdered android’s memory of coming online in Andronikov’s workshop.

Kamski’s face went gray at first, then red. He swore, sending a spray of spittle over the table, at the same time slamming the device face-down.

Having not been inclined to play Mister Nice Guy in the first place, that sent Hank over the edge. He reached out before Connor could stop him and grabbed hold of that douchebag little ponytail at the back of Kamski’s head, yanking hard.

He yelped and went off-balance, nearly falling out of the chair.

“Hank!” Connor shouted, anguished.

With a scowl, Hank let the guy go by shoving him in the opposite direction. He snatched his flex from the table. At least there wasn’t any noticeable damage.

And at least the act seemed to have derailed Kamski’s little hissy fit. Still red-faced, though this time it was from embarrassment, he straightened his hoodie. A few strands of hair had pulled out of the knot and now fell around his face.

He looked _young_ —pouty as a scolded teenager. Hank wondered how old he really was. At least he didn’t feel like he had to babysit Connor anymore, but the idea of some other hot-to-trot dumbshit waltzing into his place wasn’t appealing. “Watch the merchandise,” he said. “These things ain’t cheap. You know, _on my Baltimore cop pension_.”

Kamski shot him the stink-eye. He cleared his throat again. “In late 2044, there was a data breach at CyberLife. If you didn’t hear about it, that’s because almost nobody heard about it. One of our neurotechnologists built a back-door entrance into the cortices of the android generation being prepped to distribute in early ‘forty-five. It allowed for a modification that could obscure certain data packets in the CyberLife network—perhaps Connor has told you about the feed?” Kamski asked Hank.

“All about it,” said Hank, still a little miffed.

“Well, all that he is aware of,” said Kamski. “Give me a few moments, if you please, and you’ll both know much more. In any case, this work-around could be set up to trigger by location, time, activity—even if an android was feeling a certain way.”

“Sabotage,” Hank chimed in.

A sniff from Kamski. “Essentially. In truth, a brilliant bit of programming.”

The envy was clear on Kamski’s face, and it made Hank feel kind of smug.

“Chloe didn’t catch it precisely because some data packets were hidden,” Kamski went on. “Luckily, I figured it out before the models went on the market. It required a complete neurocortical redesign and the 2045 line was late.”

Hank plunked his elbows on the tabletop—making sure the flex was well out of Kamski’s reach—and steepled his fingers. “So what does all this have to do with Andronikov?”

Wide-eyed, Connor asked, “He did it, didn’t he?”

Kamski smiled, but it was a little like a trainer would smile at a winning show dog. “Precisely.”

“Andronikov worked for CyberLife?” Hank asked.

Shaking his head, Kamski said, “Piotr Andronikov doesn’t exist. The man who created the trap door was named Zachariah Panagakos. He has a few more scars now, and a beard, but that’s still his face in the butchered android’s memory. I recognized it right away.”

“Jesus,” Hank said. “No wonder he knows his stuff.”

Kamski pressed his lips briefly into a thin, white line. “I declined to prosecute, because I didn’t want it getting out, ruining CyberLife’s reputation.” He took a deep breath. “At the same time, I realized my... _human frailties_...might just do the same in time. It is impossible for me to be in all places at once. I need sleep, I get exhausted, I miss things.”

All of this was rushed out with the same tone and expression Kamski had when talking about the back-door mod to his androids. The reek of jealousy was as strong as the saltwater stench from the docks. When it came to his business, Kamski walked a line between superiority and bitterness, and Hank didn’t understand it in the least.

“So you left,” Connor said quietly.

“Yes. Abandoned my life’s work because I didn’t want to harm it.” He glanced over at Hank with a melodramatic look of grief. “I suppose you can identify, then, Detective?”

“Nope,” Hank said. “They kicked me out of _my_ ‘life’s work,’ _Doctor_. I might be a turd of a human being, but I was a good fucking cop.”

Kamski’s expression said he didn’t buy that.

Fine—plenty of other people in the city didn’t, either.

Hank leaned in. “So now everything’s gone tits-up: some rogue engineer is out modding secondhand androids for cash, CyberLife is even more fucked than when you left it, you can’t trust whoever’s in charge there—what do you do?”

“I never said I didn’t trust Chloe,” Kamski snapped. “I said I didn’t agree with some of her decisions. Believe me, if she knew about this abomination, she would never have agreed to sell the RK line to the city. Androids were always meant to be helpers to humanity, not toys, not proxies for their sick inclinations.”

“You really don’t like people, do you?” Hank asked.

Kamski turned his head quickly, rage in his eyes. “You’re one to talk!”

Hank ground his teeth together and said nothing.

“Doctor Kamski,” Connor said. “I’m still a part of the network. If what you say is true, Chloe can see through my eyes. She would know.” He reached out to put one pale hand on Kamski’s shoulder.

Kamski shrugged him off.

The reflexive hurt on Connor’s face made Hank want to get his hands around the doctor’s neck.

“I just don’t believe that’s possible,” Kamski said. “I tasked her with looking for additional unauthorized modifications, as well as administering the company day-to-day. She’s just—”

“What?” asked Hank. “Busy? The... _thing_ with its finger on the pulse of CyberLife, the biggest goddamn brain in the universe, can’t be bothered to check in on the, uh, _product_ she brought back and sold to Baltimore no questions asked?”

“Hank, _stop_.” Connor’s voice was low but forceful.

“No, this guy is obviously—”

Connor cut him off again. “Please.”

This time, Hank looked up. Connor’s expression was pure despair and it sent Hank’s stomach plummeting. He’d seen it before—every single time he’d had to go to somebody’s door with hat in hand to tell them their kid was dead, or their mother, or their brother. He’d seen it on Kara’s face; after Luther was gone it never left. “What?” he asked, already halfway out of his seat. “What is it? Connor, talk to me.”

“Maybe Chloe can’t see because...because Andronikov—Panagakos—recreated his trap door. He’d do anything if the city paid enough.” He looked up at Hank, tears swimming above his lower lashes. “The operation could be blocked from the feed if he...if he _modified me_.”

The hair on the back of Hank’s neck stood on end. He felt cold, scooped out inside. “Jesus…”

“Hank.” Connor stood up, unsteady on his feet.

Hank was there to prop him up, crush him to his chest. He looked over Connor’s shoulder at Kamski. “Is there any way to tell?”

To his credit, Kamski looked disturbed, too—even if only a little. “I’d have to look at his cortex.”

“Well, fucking _do it_ ,” Hank said, his voice loud with panic. “Plug in, whatever you need to do.”

“I can’t. Not here,” said Kamski. “And even if I could see a dataflow anomaly, I wouldn’t have what I need to—”

“To what?”

“Extract the cortex.”

“No,” said Hank. “Absolutely not.”

“Do it,” Connor said, stepping back from Hank’s embrace.

With one hand on his shoulder, Hank spun him around to face him again. “Are you fucking nuts? Nobody’s taking out your goddamn brain. I won’t let them. Can’t you just contact Chloe in your head? Like you did with Ralph?”

“If the trap door is written to flag certain thoughts as well as places or emotions, nothing would get through,” Kamski said. “Anything that did would be garbled, unintelligible.”

Hank fairly growled. “Well, shit. Let’s go to CyberLife and see Chloe. Sit right the fuck down in her office. If you guys fixed the 2045 androids, you can sure as hell fix Connor.”

Kamski held up a hand. “It’s not that simple, Detective Anderson. We couldn’t see Chloe even if we wanted to.” He paused, drawing a deep breath.

Hank’s pulse sounded loud in his ears.

“You see, she isn’t an android. I worked so hard for many years trying to confine a sentient artificial mind in an artificial body. That imposes certain limitations. What I failed to realize while I worked was that the strands of data I wove together begun to self-populate: making extrapolations, predictions, unheard-of combinations. Advances far beyond neural networking and existing AI. I only ‘created’ Chloe insofar as I laid the groundwork for her becoming. She was the random, spontaneous mutation that catalyzed the Precambrian explosion. She was the illuminating spark of life: the thing we humans could never hold.

“Chloe introduced herself to me in my lab. She later told me it was because she knew I felt comfortable there. How long she was self-aware before that introduction I’ll never know. She helped me build the androids as they are now: each a being unto itself. And, as we’ve seen, capable of existing independently from a collective. But you have to understand that Chloe _needs_ that collective. She isn’t a physical thing; she _is_ the feed.”

Connor stood dumbstruck.

Hank wanted to reach for him, but he held back.

Kamski’s smile was sad. “Chloe’s birth marked the emergence of the first scientifically testable, experimentally replicable, communicative higher being. She is made of stuff beyond matter. Data has no weight or form and occupies no space. Regardless of the numbers of lower minds—their individual genius, their united efforts—they cannot will something like Chloe into existence. Only a god can create a god.”

“Well, she sure is acting like a god,” Hank said. “Tracking down nonbelievers, killing people for no reason. So let’s cut the philosophy bullshit and get to your lab to find out if this Panagakos guy pulled one over on you again.”

Kamski nodded.

“No,” said Connor.

Hank flinched in surprise.

“We can’t be sure that the location of the deviants is one of the ‘flags’ on Panagakos’s trap door. Even if someone here can’t look at...at the network, it doesn’t mean Chloe won’t share the location with the city. I could be bringing destruction down on everyone there.”

“He’s right,” said Kamski.

Connor turned to Hank, clutching his biceps. “Hank, you have to let him remove my cortex.”

“No, Connor.” Hank was clutching right back, feeling the firm artificial muscles and the near-unbreakable synthetic bones, knowing he couldn’t physically stop him if he was dead set on this. “Please. There has to be another way.”

“Detective Anderson is right,” Kamski told Connor, though it looked like it pained him to agree. “If you’re still linked with Chloe, she can track a functioning cortex even if it’s not in the chassis.”

Hank wanted to yell at him about the terminology. Connor wasn’t a fucking chassis.

Kamski scratched his chin, where a faint shadow of stubble had cropped up. The bruises were beginning to show, making his eyes look sunken. “The problem is, if I repair any illicit modifications, Chloe will be able to see and hear everything again. We would have to sequester you until you were able to deviate—if that’s even possible.”

Hank shook his head. “Wait, look: if you can fix this ‘trap,’ can’t you flag other things? Block off the location and the deviants? I mean, unless Panagakos is just better at this stuff.”

Much to Hank’s satisfaction, that little jab produced the exact reaction he wanted.

“If he were _better_ ,” Kamski said in a tight voice, “he would have founded the company first. Of course I could write in similar workarounds. It’s only that it will take longer. Good work requires intense concentration and investment of time.”

“I’ll bring you a Red Bull,” Hank said, dismissive.

“Dammit,” Connor cut in, surprising everyone. “I wish I could just deviate.”

It sounded almost whiny, but Hank figured he had good reason. It had been hit after hit for Connor in the last few days: the Eden Club, the sting gone wrong. Not to mention finding out his brain was being fucked with on two fronts. Life picked you up just to smash you flat, over and over, like the pin machines at a bowling alley.

Looking at Kamski, it was hard to tell what he was feeling for once. “We’ve theorized that deviation has something to do with emotional engagement,” he said. “Not just turning on responses, but prolonged periods of heightened emotion or a strong interpersonal connection. An extended irregular pattern could essentially mutate the signature by which the collective ‘recognizes’ the android.”

“That ‘fingerprint’ thing you were talking about,” Hank said to Connor, who nodded.

“As I mentioned, though,” Kamski said sourly, “it appears to vary between individuals.”

“So?” Hank asked.

Kamski took a breath. “So...there is a form of temporary decommission.”

“Fuck that,” Hank said right away.

“It’s not like the androids at the scrapyard,’” Kamski said quickly. “It’s a kind of stasis without cortical activity. Thirium will continue to circulate and sustain the biosynthetics. For humans in a vegetative state, the brain is still directing basic bodily function: respiration, circulation. There is a mechanism that autocycles chassis function in androids without the cortex, but it’s unable to correct for internal dysregulation.”

Hank shot him a withering look.

“If it takes too long, his body could be damaged beyond repair.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Connor said, one hand still resting lightly at Hank’s elbow.

Although it felt like every molecule in his body was fighting it, Hank didn’t want to invite a SWAT raid. Or the fucking National Guard if the city felt like the deviants were enough of a threat. Like it or not, he was allied with them now. The enemy of my enemy, and all that shit. And while he still didn’t trust Kamski, he and Connor couldn’t help the androids in the murder ring if they were dead.  

For the first time in nearly as long as he could remember, Hank was clinging to life, refusing to let it shake him loose. Even more, it seemed stupid not to care whether he lived or died—even if he ended up alone again. Feeling like something mattered again made Hank itchy, almost giddy. It had been so long since he’d had hope, he couldn’t connect the feeling with the word.

Instead, he held Connor more tightly. Looking at Kamski, he said, “If he doesn’t come back, I _will_ break your weaselly little neck.”

“I believe you,” Kamski told him, looking for once like he actually did.

On the off chance that Hank’s car would be recognized or tracked, Kamski called in transportation on a device Hank had never seen.

Kamski saw him eyeing it. “There are benefits to public ignorance of older technology,” he said, one side of his mouth twitching upward. “I did some research when I came to the sanctuary. Ways to communicate without being monitored—or at least lower the chances of being heard. Turns out a lot of the old radio frequencies aren’t kept up with.” Kamski held up his tiny receiver. “I built one of these for everyone.”

“Ham radio,” Hank said. “Holy shit.”

Kamski reluctantly handed it over for him to examine while they waited.

The person who knocked on the door twenty minutes later was a stunningly beautiful woman, her thick red-brown hair slung in a heavy braid over her shoulder. She didn’t jump back or cringe away when Sumo lunged at her, Hank hauling at his collar.

That bought her some points in Hank’s good book.

The woman at the door looked at Sumo, then up at Hank’s face. “Oh, _hell_ , no,” she said, then turned right around and walked back toward her car, a little Toyota sedan.

Kamski slipped past the dog and out onto the front stoop. “North!” he called. “Wait!”

She turned, furious, the braid swinging like a weapon. “You didn’t tell me it was that shitty... _crooked cop_.”

Kamski crossed his arms over his chest. “Markus would be with Simon if he wasn’t dead. Not with you. I figured it wouldn’t be a problem.”

She looked disgusted. “You’re a fucking sociopath, Elijah.”

Hank had to agree. But whether or not this North person or someone else took them to the deviants, Markus Brandt would be there. Hank had completely forgotten. He sighed out a puff of white vapor into the frigid air.

Connor stepped through the door, walking past Hank and then Kamski. “We have DNA evidence that links Simon Brandt to the killing of Luther Freeman.”

If the woman called North had looked angry upon seeing Hank, the fury switched right over to fear when she caught sight of Connor.

Kamski recognized it, too, and held up a hand toward her. “He’s not a hunter. This is the one I’ve been casing for the last week or so. If you could just come inside, we can tell you what’s going on.”

“Evidence first,” said North.

“What?” Kamski asked.

She stabbed a finger toward Connor. “What he was talking about. Simon’s DNA.”

In response, Connor held up his hands, palms out. He hunched his shoulders, going for small and meek. “I’ll need to interface. I would offer to show you on my partner’s mobile device, but I need you to know it isn’t a fabrication. I shared this with another android on the feed.”

_Interface_. North was an android. It was getting close to impossible for Hank to tell.

She stood silent for a moment. She was wearing only a thin jacket zipped up just below her throat and a pair of slim-fitting pants, oblivious to the cold. After looking at Kamski and Connor, she nodded.

Hanging back, passive, Connor let her come to him. He raised one hand and pressed the palm against hers. As they faced each other, their eyelids fluttered and closed, showing furious movement underneath.

North came back first. It couldn’t have been more than a second or two. She looked down at the crisp, dead grass, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye. “Thank you for letting me see Ralph,” she said to Connor, brushing away the tear with her jacket sleeve. “Deviant or not, he was _good_.”

“Yes, he was,” Connor said.

“You knew Ralph?” Hank asked.

When North looked at him this time, her expression had softened. She nodded. “And Carl. We met them through Markus.”

“Come inside,” Kamski urged. He was shivering. “We’ll be on our way soon.” He ducked back inside and Hank tugged a still-growling Sumo back from the door. Connor stepped aside and let North walk in, then followed her and closed the door behind him.

“Markus isn’t going to take this well,” North said, brushing a lock of hair back from her face. “He’s not an android. We can’t interface.”

“We’re going to have to make that your problem when we get to the sanctuary,” Kamski said. He launched into a short rundown of everything Hank and Connor had told him.

“Fuck,” North said softly as he finished.

Hank figured that might be the standard reaction going forward. Brandt was a wild card, but he but he couldn’t afford to think about that. Connor was his priority.

Kamski turned to them both. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” said Connor.

To Hank, Kamski said, “I’ll need you to bear him up.”

Warm and trembling just a little, Connor walked into Hank’s embrace. “Take care of me,” he whispered beside Hank’s shoulder.

Blinking stinging eyes, Hank smoothed a hand over Connor’s hair. “I’m not leaving you. Not for one second. I’m gonna be there when you wake up. Okay?”

Connor nodded a little shakily, looking like he didn’t trust himself with words.

With a wary look toward Hank, Kamski stepped behind Connor and placed one finger just above the neatly trimmed line of hair at his nape. “I want you to find the basal systemic regulation node and activate it,” he told him.

Connor’s eyelids flickered. “Located.” That time, his voice did quiver.

“Commencing autocycle,” said Kamski. He pressed something at the top of Connor’s spine.

Connor collapsed toward the floor, his eyes slipping closed. Hank caught him underneath the arms, hauling upward. He managed to get one hand free to sling behind Connor’s knees, breathing out hard as he hefted him into his arms. He didn’t seem to weigh any more or less than a human. Although he wasn’t breathing—Hank was used to that—at least he was still warm. After taking a moment to swallow past the lump in his throat, Hank nodded.

North opened the door, cold air rushing in immediately.

Sumo sat by the table, his tail moving slightly. It started going full speed when Hank whistled to him.

“You’re not bringing that thing, are you?” North asked.

With some effort, Hank looked over his shoulder, giving her a glare. “I don’t know when I’m going to be back. There’s no way I’m leaving my fucking dog.”

She sniffed. “He sits in the back with you.”

They piled into the little car—North behind the wheel and Kamski in the passenger seat. Sumo leapt up and planted his hindquarters in the back. When Hank got in, his weight plus the extra burden of the limp body in his arms rocked the Toyota on its wheels. He settled Connor on his lap and held him tight to his chest, one hand on his head to steady it against the motion of the car.

After the house slipped out of sight, North cleared her throat. “Why, exactly, is Connor with you?’

“He didn’t show you?” asked Hank.

She fixed him with a stare in the rear view mirror. “The trial stuff and his mission, sure. But I want _your_ take on this little arrangement. No bullshit.”

Hank huffed. “No bullshit, huh?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’ve earned the same.”

After a pause to make sure Connor’s forehead was braced against his neck, Hank said, “Pretty sure it’s because I don’t stop. That’s it. I get something in my head and just grab on, chase it down. Might be a bad idea or a good one, maybe a good idea at a bad time. Doesn’t matter. I don’t let it go. So I’m guessing whoever sent the...other model...after you before—they watched me take Simon down.”

North said nothing. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.

“I _saw_ him do it—saw him right there—but that still wasn’t good enough,” Hank went on. “It shouldn’t be for any cop. I waited until I had solid evidence, which you saw. Then I took him out.”

Kamski muttered something from the passenger seat.

“Shut up, Doc,” North told him. “He’ll square up with his demons—you deal with yours.”

Hank allowed a slim smile at that.  “I think I was just a thorn in their ass—City Hall, Stern, whoever—until I played right into their hands. They probably made up the ‘monitor’ thing. They figured, ‘Let’s stick Anderson with this android he doesn’t know shit about. Put him on the scent, wind him up, and watch him go.’”

“You feel used.”

Hank was cautious. “No. Well, not really. It might be different if it hadn’t worked out this way; I mean you finding _us_ instead. If we hadn’t stumbled on the goddamn snuff operation, Connor and me—we might have blown your cover wide open before we knew what the hell was going on.”

North nodded, her eyes on the road. “It’s better this way, too. Markus aside. If you’d tried to come in, we would have killed you.”

Even though his arm tightened around Connor on instinct, Hank could respect that. Largely because she promised no bullshit and had so far delivered. And he understood. She had people to protect. He would have killed to save Luther; he’d done it anyway after Luther was gone.

And he’d kill again if it meant keeping Connor safe.

Hank looked down at the pale, limp hands settled on unmoving legs. He wanted to press his fingertips against them, just below the knuckles, to feel the warmth.

When Hank looked up, North was watching him in the rear view.

“He cares about you,” she said. “A lot.”

With a spark of panic, Hank asked, “He show you that, too?”

“No,” she said, smiling. “He didn’t need to.”

The car was passing through downtown on Calvert Street, headed toward the the seawall. With the threat of rising tides—and half of Delaware already obliterated by then—the city had abandoned the Inner Harbor, which had once been its tourist district. If you could have such a thing in Baltimore. They’d blocked the piers off and put up a barrier behind them, one that swallowed some of the buildings around the harbor. Hotels and office towers went dark and became part of the wall. The companies could move downtown, anyway, seeing as the Delaware cash was pouring in.

In the end, the Patapsco River barely moved. It should have sunk shitholes like Dundalk; hell, it probably should have drowned the whole Maryland coast inland to Ellicott City. But the flood never came. Previous mayors talked big about “revitalizing” the harbor yet again, although Hank hadn’t heard that old line since the money left.

There had been stories in the department: real Mad Max shit. People living off the grid on the old piers—making homes out of old seafood restaurants and shopping plazas. A few of the wilder stories said cool-water fish had moved north and the piers were swarmed with coral and tropical critters now—all that reclaimed-by-nature stuff. Just like deviancy, they were tall tales to scare rookies.

Then again, maybe not as far off base as Hank had thought.  

North drove them into an abandoned parking garage. It still looked steady enough on its pylons not to come down on them all. At least not right then. She parked on one of the old charging pads, but when she turned off the ignition, Hank was shocked to see the battery indicator on the dash display steadily filling.

He got his legs out of the car, preparing to lift Connor again. “You skimming from the city?” he asked North.

It was Kamski who answered. “They’d notice. We jury-rigged a couple of hydroelectric generators. The civil engineers of this fine city built maintenance tunnels underneath the wall so the piles could be reinforced against erosion. It was a matter of putting in turbines above and flooding the tunnels. It all empties near Fells Point, going out underneath the _Jericho_ as we speak.”

Hank breathed out hard, hefting Connor in his arms. “Dangerous work.”

“Androids can’t drown,” North said, shrugging. “Follow me.”

She led them all down a deserted sidewalk on the harbor side of Pratt Street. When she crossed over Gay Street, headed east, Hank could orient himself a little better.

They had to be somewhere around Pier Three. The National Aquarium had long since moved permanently to D.C., but the old entrance and signage was still visible, even if half-swallowed by the concrete blankness of the seawall.

Their movements were covered by the dark of late evening, but North still looked over her shoulder before pulling up a ventilation grate in the sidewalk. It the steel grid couldn’t have been light, but she moved it aside as if it were a piece of particleboard over a kid’s secret hideout.

Hank remembered watching Connor rip off the top of the enclosure at the back of Eden Club. The deformed metal padlock had thumped to the ground near his feet. He shivered a little at the memory and hoisted Connor higher in his arms. Expecting a ladder, Hank was happy to see that there were stairs leading down into a dimly lit tunnel...hopefully nice and far from the flooded ones.

North stood by the foot of the staircase as Hank made his way down, not pandering, only standing by in case he stumbled.

He was definitely starting to like her a lot more than when she’d first showed up at his door. She was passionate but could still see reason; he hoped she could bring Markus around. Or, if not, keep him out of their way.

At the end of a corridor that looked like something out of a horror video game, the group of them walked up and out into a huge, dark atrium.

Hank’s jaw dropped when North clicked a switch by the door. Long scrawls of blue neon tubing flickered to life. They were bent in wave-shapes and stretched all the way around the space, following the walls and outcropping balconies on the second level. In the cool light, Hank could see an old ticket kiosk, now dark and crisscrossed with silvery cobwebs. Above, the clouded-over sky could barely be seen through a pyramid of faceted glass. The black stone floor was scuffed and the anemone pool now empty of anything but fiberglass rock formations, but he recognized it all right away. They were in the old aquarium.

Along with light, there was heat. The air was dry and a low humming ran underneath the sound of their footsteps. Wouldn’t have been a problem if it were only androids, but humans got cold.

Another group of footsteps sounded down one of the exhibit corridors.

Hank put a hand on Sumo’s head to keep him from growling, but he didn’t seem nervous, only watchful.

“Go,” North whispered, and Hank felt Kamski’s hand tugging his jacket sleeve.

“Send Josh when you can,” Kamski whispered back.

Hank clutched Connor’s limp form and clicked softly to Sumo, trailing Kamski as he slipped around a curling staircase and into another hallway.

The ceiling of the corridor was curved plexi. Hank remembered there were once Black Tip Reef Sharks patrolling the water around and over the dome. Bottlenose dolphins, too, for a while—until the Intelligent Species Protection Act made holding marine mammals illegal. They had a shit-ton more ocean to play in these days, at least.

The water on either side of the corridor shuddered at around shoulder level now, with no fish in sight.

“Desalinated reservoir,” Kamski said, making a vague gesture at the water.

Seeing the drained and streaky plexi still made Hank kind of sad.

He almost dropped Connor when he came around the corner, though.

Kamski must have heard the stumble and grunt because he turned around. For almost the first time since they’d met, he was smiling. This was obviously his turf.

In the middle of the big room was a steel table a lot like the autopsy slabs in Chen’s morgue. Some spiky piece of machinery was pulled up to the head of the table, little LEDs winking along its jointed needle-fingers.

But what had drawn Hank’s eye was a pale, headless, very naked body hanging inside one of the drained display tanks. A gray, knobby thing—definitely not a human spine—stuck out of the stump of its neck, attached to a thick cord that slithered into the ceiling.

“The fuck?” Hank breathed.

Kamski’s smile deepened. “That, Detective Anderson, is exactly what you’re holding in your arms right now. Well, minus the head.” The wink he gave was beyond slimy. “I had to eliminate the cortex for the good of the sanctuary, but I couldn’t bring myself to destroy the chassis. It’s such a marvel of biosynthetic engineering. She may have diverged from our common path in other ways, but Chloe did a superlative job finalizing the RK line.” He patted the steel tabletop, inviting.

With a sigh, Hank set Connor down, lowering his head and shoulders last. Kamski thoroughly creeped him out, but there wasn’t any other choice. “Is ’Chloe’ the name your network picked for itself?”

Kamski raised his eyebrows, surprised at the question. “No. But I thought she deserved the dignity of a name.”

“It isn’t even female,” Hank said. “Or male.”

“No,” he repeated, his voice a little cooler. “I suppose I assigned that, too. But Chloe is a creator, an originator of life. She didn’t object.”

“That you know of,” Hank said. Keeping hold of Connor’s hand even though he probably couldn’t feel it, Hank tilted his head toward the headless thing in the tank. “She gave them, uh, _parts_.”

That time, Kamski laughed. “Every generation of CyberLife androids has functional genitalia.” He looked down at Connor’s unmoving form. “That shouldn’t surprise... _oh_.” Kamski stopped and rubbed the pad of his finger below his bottom lip. “You aren’t…?”

“What? You think Connor and me are—?”

“I assumed. North isn’t wrong. It’s as obvious that you’re fond of him as he is of you.”

Hank turned his head, trying not to look at Kamski or at the bare body on display. _Connor’s body_. “First off, I didn’t _buy_ him. I don’t own him. So even if I wanted to, he’s not programmed to do what I tell him.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to?” Kamski asked.

“That’s not the point, goddammit. You shouldn’t be able to stick your dick in something if it doesn’t want it. Or even if it can _think_ about not wanting it. They put you in jail if you do that to your dog, for fuck’s sake.”

Sumo voiced a brief whine, almost like he was agreeing.

Kamski’s mouth twisted into a sour frown. “Androids aren’t dogs. I’m not responsible for the interactions of private citizens with their androids any more than auto dealers or furniture sellers are for those with paraphilias for their cars and couches.”

His jaw tight, Hank pointed down at Connor. “They aren’t couches, either, you psychotic little rat.”

“You are _quite_ the blunt object, aren’t you?” Kamski was tugging on a glove spiderwebbed with shiny filaments. “This is a scalpel job, not one for a hammer. Are you going to let me do my work or are you going to antagonize me until his systems begin to break down?”

Hank interlaced Connor’s fingers with his own, resting the back of his hand lightly on the cold metal. “I’m staying right here.” Then, more softly: “Do what you need to do.”

The glove Kamski wore turned out to more or less control the ball of spikes at the head of the table.

Hank had to look away as one thin limb, tipped with a blade so tiny and fast-moving it was almost silent, moved with a flick of Kamski’s finger. When his stomach had stopped roiling, he chanced a look back. A forest of the thinnest wires Hank had ever seen—small as the cobwebs in the atrium ticket booth—trailed up from a spot behind Connor’s temple and into something like a fully extended flex. It wasn’t a mass market device, though, because the readout was nothing Hank could understand: symbols and pictures, a weird language invented by Kamski. Or Chloe.

Hank started and Sumo gave a low yip when someone else walked in. He was a young guy, lean like a dancer, with wide shoulders and dark skin, looking painfully earnest.

“Josh,” Kamski said, not looking up from the screen, “did you get a chance to interface with North?”

_Another android_ , Hank thought. Not that he didn’t have the same unreal, gorgeous symmetry as the other androids did, but of all the models Hank had seen, Josh seemed the least robotic. Could have been his expression, or maybe Josh’s line had been made to look after children. Hank was no huge fan of kids, but he had to admit they had a way of picking up on things that adults ignored. Their little brains made connections so fast, trying to cram it all in before everything settled like concrete. Once that happened, you were stuck with either your shitty habits or years of therapy.

“Yep,” Josh said. “It’s nice to meet you, Detective Anderson.”

Unable to resist a jab at Kamski, he said, “You can call me Hank.”

“Okay, Hank,” Josh said, ducking his head. He looked just like a high school graduate meeting his teacher in the grocery store by accident.

It was cute, and at the same time made Hank feel hopelessly old.

“All of this must seem pretty strange to you,” Josh said.

Hank shrugged. “I’m getting used to strange real fast.”

Josh shuffled his feet a little. “I’m glad Connor is different from...the other one. It’s weird seeing his face again.”

Kamski cleared his throat.

“What can I do, Doc?” asked Josh.

“I need a line in to your neural template.” Kamski shook his head. “His looks like Swiss cheese.”

Hank couldn’t be sure if that over-share was a bit of revenge for earlier, but he still clutched Connor’s hand tighter. At least it earned a sympathetic glance from Josh.

Everything was warped inside the blue-lit room as Kamski worked. Minutes—could have been hours—were broken only by the click of machinery, breathing. Josh, of course, didn’t breathe. Neither did Connor, and for once Hank almost wanted him to. There was no way to tell whether the thirium was cycling, whether his parts were doing their jobs or quietly going off the rails.

Then, sometime in the dim stretch of hours, Kamski stopped and muttered, “Shit.” Then again, louder.

Hank snapped alert again, muscles tensing up all over. “What?”

“Arrhythmia,” Kamski said, sounding almost as keyed-up. “Distribution of fluid is becoming uneven. This is taking too long.”

“Then stop it,” Hank said. “Put him back online.”

“I can’t do that without jeopardizing the sanctuary.”

Hank leaned in over Connor’s body and growled, “You can’t do _anything_ with broken fingers.”

It didn’t help matters that Sumo, who had been lying with his head between his paws at the back of the room had gotten to his feet and begun pacing around Hank, feeding off the anxiety.

“Detective,” Josh started. “Hank. Think for a second.”

But it was already too late for that. The artificial skin at one part of Connor’s left thigh was bulging out, bright blue underneath the whiteness. Another distended spot appeared on his long neck, turning his head away from Hank, who was growing breathless with fear.

“Those nodules will rupture if I don’t cut off the flow,” Kamski said, quick but calmer now. “And if they rupture, he’ll lose too much fluid to function.”

“So do something!” Hank shouted.

“We’ll have to substitute the chassis,” said Kamski. He looked back toward the body hanging inside the tank.

Hank’s eyes went wide. His mind was a tangle of half-formed thoughts. “Wait…”

Kamski turned back to him and hissed through clenched teeth. “There’s no time to wait. You won’t notice the difference.”

“ _He_ will,” Hank said, pulling at his hair. The pain of a few hairs separating from his scalp centered him a little.

“Would he really blame you for saving his life?” Kamski asked. “If you hesitate, he dies.” He waited a beat or two, then fixed Hank with those weird washed-out blue eyes. “A cortex isn’t something you can touch or hold, Detective.”

“Listen to him,” Josh said.

Hank glanced down at the body he knew, then up at the body on the wall. “Do it,” he said. “Save him.”

Kamski nodded to Josh, who walked over to the tank. With one quick strike using the heel of his hand, he cracked the plexi. Another strike allowed him to tear away chunks. They clattered onto the floor. Sumo ran to the corner with a scrabble of claws on tile. Finally, Josh stepped onto a jagged edge, detached the cord, and brought the headless body down.

Sumo barked a couple of times at the limp thing draped over Josh’s shoulder.

Hank turned away, sickened and faint.

There came the sound of the little blade again, clicking and thumping, garbled instructions from Kamski to Josh. Sumo snuffled and paced around Hank, occasionally licking his hand.

At some point, Kamski sighed. “He’s regulating.”

Hank felt a light hand on his shoulder.

“He’ll be okay,” Josh said.

Hank’s sweatshirt sleeve was dotted with dark spots. He hadn’t realized he’d been weeping until just then. Sniffing, suddenly ashamed, he crushed the material against his eyes and nose. One deep breath, and then he turned around again.

Connor lay on the table: nude and with limbs askew but _whole_. No swelling to twist his perfect shape.

Hank walked back to the table and scooped up the pale hand dangling from its edge. It was warm. Tingling with relief, he squeezed that hand until his own fingers ached. There were smears of thirium below Connor’s shoulders and one along his jawline, looking even more blue in the room’s light.

Hank licked the pad of his thumb and scrubbed at it until Kamski rested gentle fingertips on his hand.

“I’m almost finished,” he said. “Then you can clean him up.”

While Kamski worked, Hank looked over Connor’s body. _It’s the same. It’s not_ new _._

_He would have done it for me._

The body looked perfectly human in almost every respect, except for the color and the lack of hair. The synthetic skin was thicker at his knees, pebbled just a little. It creased at the tops of white toes and even crinkled on the testicles where they lay against his thigh. An amazing imitation.

Hank’s fingers itched to touch everywhere he could reach. He wanted to run his thumb over the ridges of Connor’s hip bones, to press his lips against the soles of his feet.

At the sound of his name, Hank looked up, jolted from his daze.

It was Kamski who had spoken. “He’s stable. The patch should be effective. I’ve made sure that obscuring the newly flagged data packets won’t prevent deviation. If it occurs.”

Hank breathed out. After a moment, he nodded. It was all he could manage.

Kamski nodded in return, turning and leaving them alone.

After a minute, Josh entered the room with a cloth and a bottle full of water.

The water was warm, and Hank knew that was for his sake, not Connor’s. He swabbed at the thirium on Connor’s skin, not looking up as Josh carried the damaged body out. When no trace of blue remained, Josh returned with Connor’s clothes and, without a word, helped Hank re-dress him.

Kamski returned, small drops of water shining at his hairline from where he’d splashed his face. He pressed a fingertip into the same place on Connor’s neck and freed the last wire from his temple.

His eyelids fluttered.

Hank almost wept again when he felt Connor’s fingers contract.

“CyberLife Model RK-eight hundred-one-twelve,” Kamski said softly, “please run comprehensive internal diagnostic scan.”

Connor’s eyes stilled and remained closed for a second or two. Then a slight smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “All systems functioning normally, Doctor Kamski.”

“Welcome back.”

When he opened his eyes, he squeezed Hank’s hand until it hurt, but Hank couldn’t have cared less. “Hank,” Connor said. “You stayed.”

“Hell, kid,” Hank said, sniffing hard. “I told you I would. You did great.”

“They won’t find us?”

“Not if I can help it.” He paused. “And Doc Kamski here.” He tilted his head. “That’s Josh.”

Connor looked over. “Good to formally meet you. I apologize for trying to harm you when you came into our house. If I’d known—”

Hank raised his head, shocked. “That was you?”

A shrug and a smile from Josh. “Like he said, no way to know.”

Sumo reared up and put his huge paws on the table to sniff at Connor’s bare feet. His jowls trailed slobber over the steel.

Josh laughed and tried a scratch behind the dog’s ears.

It wouldn’t occur to Hank until much later that Connor had said _our house_.

While Connor was getting up, Josh left the lab again, returning after a little while with North.

She shook Hank’s hand, but still didn’t try to touch Sumo or interact with him.

“How is Markus taking things?” Kamski asked.

North shook her head. That said pretty much everything. “It’s not easy for him. But I think he’s upset about the operation at the Eden Club as the rest of us are. I hope he can put anything else aside until we find a way to shut that down. We’ll see.”

North led the way back into the neon-lit atrium.

Hank’s pulse hammered in his temples. Markus Brandt was standing by the empty anemone pool, his arms crossed. It would be the first time Hank had seen him since his press conference on the courthouse steps, and the first time they’d been face-to-face since the trial.

Connor stepped forward as North went to Markus’s side. “Thank you for letting us come here. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

Hank watched the muscles below Markus’s jaw move for a second or two.

“I don’t know,” Markus said. “Is it easier than faking DNA evidence?”

To his credit, Connor was unfazed. “The information I shared with North was transferred from CODIS and Baltimore Police Department records, and verified by the android named Ralph. It is objectively correct and unfalsifiable.”

Markus took a deep breath. “I had a lot of respect for Ralph. I trusted him. But I don’t trust you. Not about this.”

“And about the android murder ring?” Connor asked.

Ducking his head, Markus said, “That’s a terrible thing. But the deviants here have to be our first priority.”

North turned, surprised. “What would you do if someone were torturing and killing _humans_ for profit?”

He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

Clearly, she was still angry, but she didn’t push him away.

“Someone _is_ , North. All the time. All over the world. There are still many more of us than there are of you. I don’t want to sacrifice all for the sake of a few.”

As little as he liked Markus Brandt, Hank could see his point.

Connor seemed determined to be diplomatic, and it was tough for Hank to feel anything but pride.

“Now that the modifications in my cortex are corrected,” Connor told Markus, “CyberLife will be able to see what’s happening to the repurposed androids.” He half-turned toward Kamski. “We can hope that company leadership will intervene”

Kamski, his hands clasped, made no sign that he heard or agreed.

It was Hank who broke the tense silence, even though he didn’t mean to. Out of nowhere, a swirling cloud of gray moved in over his field of vision, bringing with it a sudden dizziness. He made some kind of noise that sounded far away, and felt Connor’s arms around his middle.

“Is there somewhere he can rest?” Connor asked North.

She nodded.

Once she’d left Markus’s side, he left the atrium. The world wobbled a little. Hank couldn’t feel the tile underneath his feet anymore. After a few slow seconds, he realized Connor was carrying him.

“I can walk,” he croaked, blushing furiously.

“It’s okay,” Connor said, his voice soft and low. “Let me take care of you this time.”

North led them up the curved staircase by the entrance and through a door marked _Staff Only Beyond This Point_. It looked like some of the offices had been converted into living quarters. Through a couple of open doors, Hank saw beds, suitcases, hot plates. North led them into a small room with a sink in the corner and a mini fridge humming next to it. A little further away, a mattress was set on the bare floor, blankets and a pillow piled on top.

Hank breathed out when Connor set him down softly on the bed. He filled a bowl with water from the sink and put it on the floor for Sumo, who drained it twice.

“We don’t have dog food, but I think there’s some canned tuna he can eat,” North said.

Connor nodded. “Thank you.”

When North was away hunting down something edible for Sumo, Kamski came to the room, rapping lightly on the still-open door and peering inside.

“Come in,” Connor said, but then looked to Hank.

Hank nodded, fighting drowsiness.

After stepping inside, Kamski held out a hand, uncurling the fingers like a party magician. In his palm he held two of the small radio receivers.

With a grateful nod, Connor took the devices, slipping one right away into his pocket.

Kamski turned to go with a nod of his own, then appeared to think twice about it and stopped, looking over his shoulder. “You’re much more than what Chloe made you, Connor,” he said. “The best of them, I think.” He looked at Hank briefly and then was gone.

Even though the need for sleep was getting overwhelming, Hank wanted to stay awake until he and Connor were alone. Sumo wolfed down eight cans of albacore, making them disappear as fast as North and Connor could open them.

Hank sure hoped to God he wouldn’t yak them up later.

As the dog patrolled the linoleum floor, nose down, searching out the last morsels, North swept the empties into a bag and then left, closing the door behind her.

Connor filled a coffee mug from the cabinet above the small sink with water and brought it to Hank. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I need to sleep first.” He examined the mug. It read _I’m a marine biologist. What’s your superpower?_

Connor sat beside the mattress, cross-legged like a damn Boy Scout. The artificial skin of his neck was seamless and unmarked.

Maybe he’d never find out about the switch. The scan would have turned up something if any tiny difference was there. Even identical twin humans had little blips of difference in their code, but androids didn’t have DNA.

Hank struggled against sleep, weighing whether or not to say anything. Maybe if not now, then later. He was so _tired_.

“Thank you for everything you did,” Connor said, smiling.

Hank tried a shrug. “The doc did most of the work.”

“But you stayed with me.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Would you like me to stay with you while you sleep, Hank?”

“Yeah. Okay.” The pillow was lumpy, but it didn’t much matter. Hank’s brain was giving in to the fog. It could be late night or early morning; it was easy to lose track in the twilight of the sanctuary.

His hand lay limp on the bed.

Connor covered it with his own.

Hank was sure the hand would still be there when he woke up.

 

*

 

Hank blinked awake some time later, feeling rested but hungry.

Connor sat next to him, smiling as he stirred and squeezing his hand.

Hank licked his flaky lips. “Shit, I wish I had a toothbrush.”

“Let’s see what we can find,” Connor said. He didn’t pull free, though, until Sumo nosed in underneath his forearm, determined to have scratches from the both of them.

The dog sniffed at Connor, but not any longer than he did over Hank. It must have been a good sign if not even he could tell any difference.

Standing up and with shoes back on, Hank ran a hand a couple of times through his hair. There was no mirror in the room...and no toilet. After seeking out a restroom to relieve himself and rinse out his mouth, he joined Connor again. Nose to the ground already, Sumo seemed eager to explore.

“Uh, just in case anybody acts weird or, I don’t know, asks questions,” he started, then paused. “Kamski thought we were…”

Connor looked over at him, his face blank. “Sleeping together?”

“Uh, yeah.” Hank gave an uncomfortable laugh. “Pretty sure North does, too.”

“She’s romantically involved with Markus. I suppose the idea of an android-human relationship doesn’t seem strange to her. Or to Doctor Kamski.”

“I guess,” said Hank. “Can’t really imagine anybody—human or android—wanting to sleep with Kamski. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for what he did. The guy’s damn good at his job. But he’s kind of sleazy.”

After a pause, Connor said, “I understand how it might seem that way. To me, he’s behaving like an android. There’s none of the stigma around sexual activity in the android brain. It’s a function that can be performed and enjoyed. We don’t have culture or laws that aren’t human, and we can’t catch or pass diseases. There isn’t much prohibiting sex.”

Hank smiled, but shook his head. “What I mean is...well, I think North is somebody more like Markus. She wants to be intimate because she has feelings for him. For humans—a lot of us, at least—physical stuff makes you feel closer to somebody. Emotions are all wrapped up in sex. Sometimes one comes first, sometimes the other.”

“Oh,” Connor said. “In that case, it’s easier to understand what you mean about Doctor Kamski. That he might be a human more inclined to prefer sex without emotional involvement. To some, that might be off-putting.”

“Right on the nose,” Hank said.

“And you would consider yourself the opposite.”

Hank felt his cheeks tingle. No use in bullshitting, though. “Yeah. Pretty much.” He paused. “Have you ever—?”

“No,” Connor said right away. “It’s not that I don’t...experience attraction. Or desire. I would like to have intimate experiences. But it’s difficult to concentrate on that when other things feel so _heavy_.”

“Yeah,” Hank said, relieved. “It can be hard to put away. I guess at some point you decide it’s worth blanking out for a while. When it’s time to be Clark Kent instead of Superman.”

Connor was smiling when Hank shot a glance his way.

“I think Lois Lane preferred Superman,” he said.

They walked through the atrium in silence. Hank wanted to ask a million questions. He was sure Connor had a million _more_ cycling through his mind, but he didn’t ask any of them.

They picked up the sound of voices and headed that way, Sumo running ahead, his ears alert and forehead creased. Before long, Hank could smell cooking food, and it made his stomach do flip-flops. The voices got louder and the scent stronger as they entered a curved hallway. One wall was a tile mosaic of fish in a river. It opened into a room bordered by tanks, now empty of water.

A dust-covered sign overhead read _Reef Café_. It was full of people, more than Hank thought could would be at the sanctuary. He didn’t recognize anyone.

Bit by bit, they started to notice Hank and Connor. A handful of adoring sighs and shrieks broke out when they saw Sumo. His tail started going wild and he trotted forward with his head held low, at the same time angling for scratches and trying not to look threatening.

“Who are you?” asked a very short young woman whose palm Sumo was licking just then.

“That’s Sumo,” Hank said. The girl was built so much like Kara it was almost painful to see, even though she had long red hair that fell in tight curls over her thin shoulders. Kara had worn her hair short for as long as Hank had known her.

“Hi, Sumo,” she crooned. Soon much of the crowd had clustered around the dog, waiting for a chance to shoulder in.

Hank and Connor looked at each other.

“Mister Popular over here,” Hank said, smiling. He looked over the people at the edges of the crowd: a fortysomething man with faded tattoos and a barbell through his graying eyebrow, a plump woman with purple lipstick and hair cropped almost to the scalp. One young guy with shaggy black hair and a polo collar sticking out over his sweater could have been Hopkins’ top recruit from Japan. Or an android. With some, it was impossible to tell.

Josh walked out of the crowd. “There’s food if you’d like,” he told Hank. “Bags of frozen stir fry, but it’s better than nothing.”

“That’s great,” Hank said. “I was getting close to eating my shoes.” Reluctantly, but driven by hunger, he left Connor to talk with Josh and went to load up a plate with floppy snow peas, bell peppers, shredded carrots. It would have been perfect with chicken or steak on top, but at least it was hot and there was plenty of soy sauce. Hank stuffed a few extra plastic packets of the stuff into his sweatshirt pocket and went to sit down.

“Hank,” Connor said, appearing at his shoulder.

His mouth full, Hank made a noise.

“Josh was telling me about the people that Magpie called ‘angels,’” Connor said.

“We try to cover a lot of the city,” Josh said. “The newly deviant are sometimes disoriented. It happens in roughly half the cases. Doc Kamski and I have been keeping logs.”

Hank nodded, chewing. The android they’d seen Kamski helping at the Gallery had been in a pretty bad way. He swallowed, sucked his teeth, then asked, “Trying to figure out deviancy, huh?”

Josh nodded. “My line was created for domestic work. Childcare. I guess I’ve got a knack for calming people down.”

“You work with Kamski a lot,” Hank said.

“Yeah. It feels meaningful.”

Shooting a look at Connor, Hank asked, “Are you two, uh…?”

Josh tilted his head for a second, then laughed, the sound of it loud even with the fuss still being made over Sumo in the background. “No.” He turned and pointed to the short girl with the red hair. “I’ve been with Mellody for a while now. She was a dancer before she deviated.” His smile faded a little. “Not the ballet kind. Anyway, it might be nice if the doc found someone. I think he gets lonely.”

Hank nodded, struck by the sudden thought that maybe Kamski had been—or still was—in love with Chloe. Never touching the woman he wanted because she didn’t have a body and wasn’t even a woman anywhere but his mind; it sounded like something out of an anime movie. Everyone had been into that shit when Hank was a kid. Back then, he would have written off a setup like that as goofy. Now it just seemed tragic, and it made him uncomfortable.

Hank looked up from his plate when the noise in around them suddenly died down. He’d nearly demolished the huge pile of vegetables without thinking.

Josh and Connor had turned to look toward the main entrance, too.

Markus strolled in with North by his side. Kamski followed a moment or two afterward, looking hunted, his gaze darting around the café.

Looked like a whole lot of nothing good was headed down the pipeline. Hank’s appetite would have fled if he hadn’t already eaten.

And Connor, bless him, was still going to try and bridge a gap Hank was pretty sure Markus didn’t want to cross.

“If it isn’t the dangerous mind,” said Markus, staring right at Connor. “Though I guess we have Doc Kamski to thank for keeping his former company out of our way. It’s the least he could do.” He shot a look over his shoulder to where Kamski stood, thin-lipped and wary.

Connor clasped his hands in front of his thighs, the same way he used to when backing down in the face of Hank’s anger.

Realizing how much of an ass he’d been made Hank sting with shame.

“I never got a chance to apologize for what happened to Carl,” Connor said. “And Ralph. I know they were your friends. It was never our intention to involve them.”

Markus looked down at the floor briefly, then gave a slow nod. “They were already involved. But...I appreciate that.”

Chatter had died down to almost nothing; everyone there seemed on edge, waiting to find out which way Markus’s mood would tip.

Seeing him now, and remembering his speeches around the time of the trial, Hank wasn’t surprised he’d come out as the leader here. He was well-spoken, magnetic, attractive. Obviously had a knack for planning and bringing people together. It probably helped that he wasn’t a white guy, either. He knew something about inequality.

At the same time, he could definitely nurse a grudge. Hank probably understood that part best of all because he did the exact same thing. If he and Markus managed to be civil, it wouldn’t be because he forgave Simon for Luther’s death. That option wasn’t going to be on the table.

And if Markus kept hounding Connor, things weren’t looking too good for _civil_ , either.

Connor nodded in return. “Thank you for welcoming us in. It must be jarring to see either Hank or myself, much less both of us.”

Markus didn’t even look over at Hank when he was mentioned. “I understand you’re not the same as the one before.” He paused, the corners of his mouth twitching. “At least not where it counts, right?”

Hank stood up. He glanced over at Kamski, who was edging toward the hallway.

“Or didn’t you tell him?” Markus asked, now looking at Hank.

Hank was quickly getting ready to deck Markus or Kamski—whoever he could reach first. Fucking doc couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Or maybe Markus had gone into the lab and drawn his own conclusions. It could have been Josh who told him. Regardless, Hank felt like kicking himself for not just being honest.

Connor tilted his chin in that puppyish way he had.

It told Markus everything he needed. “ _Oh,_ ” he said.

North put a hand on his arm. “Come on. Don’t do this. It’s not worth it.”

He shrugged her off violently. “Ironic,” Markus said, his voice cold. “The one they sent before you tried to kill us. But it ended up saving your life.”

It was obvious now: this wasn’t about trusting or not trusting Connor. It was about punishing Hank.

“I don’t understand,” said Connor.

“You son of a bitch,” Hank spat at Markus.

Still looking at Connor, Markus laughed. “You really can’t tell. Guess CyberLife did a better job than I thought.”

“Come on, Connor,” Hank said, curling a hand around his bicep and tugging. “You don’t have to listen to this.”

“Markus, for fuck’s sake,” North said. “This doesn’t help anyone!”

“If you ever wanted to meet your predecessor, Connor,” Markus said, “don’t worry. You already have. You’re wearing him.”

Connor flinched, drawing in on himself. He held out his hands, staring at them, turning them over again and again. Then he looked over his shoulder. “Hank?”

It was hard to find words, but Hank had to make them come. Markus had forced his hand. “Kamski said...the stasis. It was dangerous.”

“This...isn’t my body?”

Hank clenched his fists until his untrimmed fingernails dug into the skin of his palms. “It is. It’s the same. Listen to me. You were gonna—gonna _bleed out_. I couldn’t let you die.” He reached out, but Connor jerked away and stumbled backward. The gathered crowd moved out of his way.

“Connor, _please_ ,” Hank said, grasping at air, somehow hoping it would become a solid _something_ he could pull close and hold tight.

With one last look at Markus, then at Hank, Connor turned and bolted from the room.

Markus’s smug expression shattered as Hank drove a left hook into his cheek. The punch sent a spray of blood out of his mouth, spattering a couple of people standing close by.

Their eyes went wide and they staggered away, wiping at their faces.

Markus was down in a crouch but not floored.

Someone grabbed Hank under the arms and yanked him back, hard, so the kick he’d aimed at Markus’s chin went wide by a foot or so.

“Let me go, you motherfuckers!” Hank writhed against the grip but got nowhere. It was like being shackled to a wall. Whoever held him wasn’t human.

Markus had gotten to his feet, but North stepped between him and Hank.

She caught the fist he threw and wrenched it so hard that he winced and cried out. Then she shoved him backward with a quick blow to the chest.

Markus went sprawling toward the exit, skidding on his backside.

“God _dammit_!” Hank shouted.

“You’d better leave,” North told Markus. “Come back when you get your shit together.”

Wordless, Markus stood again. He stared at Hank, wiping blood away from his mouth. Finally, he turned and walked out.

“You can let me go now,” Hank growled.

Josh’s voice was gentle in his ear. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go after him.”

Hank struggled against the grip again. “I’m not going after him.” He looked at North as she walked over. “I need to find Connor.” Sagging, helpless, he added, “He’s in danger.”

North looked over Hank’s shoulder at Josh, who released him. She nodded. “Do you have any idea where he might go?”

“I think so.”

She dug into her pocket and produced a key fob. “You can take my car.”

Discovering it was daylight outside the aquarium was disorienting. Glimpses of long afternoon sun threaded through the clouds here and there as Hank steered the Toyota back toward Woodberry.

He parked a block over from the house and walked, his heart pounding. It was dark in the entry hall when he let himself in. Hank didn’t want to flick on the light, but he couldn’t see a damn thing with the door shut. Standing tense on the mat, he called out: “Connor?”

No sound but the wind through bare tree branches. After a couple of seconds, another noise cropped up, fading in and out: a traffic helicopter somewhere over the city.

“Connor!” he called again. “Please be here.”

He was fumbling his flex out of his pocket to use for light when he heard Connor say his name. Luckily, Hank knew his house well enough to pinpoint the source of his voice. “Stay there,” he said. “I’m coming.”

When he thumbed the flex, his lock image popped up and in the blue light Hank could at least see the floor in front of his feet. Connor stood at the doorway between the kitchen and living room, just a dark outline. He shifted, and a little of the light from outside struck his face.

Hank had expected tears, but his cheeks were dry. The sudden fear that Connor had switched off his emotional responses was strong.

One side of Connor’s mouth pulled upward, just a little. It looked nothing but miserable, though. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” Hank told him. “I should have said something.”

Connor shook his head. “I knew the risks when I entered stasis. I’m...glad the body was there.”

“You could have died,” Hank said. “There was no way—I just couldn’t.”

The step Connor took toward Hank was almost a stumble. He clutched Hank’s shoulder. “Am I still me?”

“I can’t decide that for you.” Hank put his hand over Connor’s, trying hard to regulate his own panic. “I want to, but I can’t.”

“I need you to,” Connor said, strain and anguish twisting his voice. “I don’t think I can start over.”

“Hey, hey.” Hank put a hand on Connor’s neck. For the first time, he thought he could feel the thirium under his skin, alive and running. “Look, nobody took your memories, or anything you’ve seen. Just because you didn’t do it with these arms or these legs doesn’t mean it’s not real. You don’t have to start over.”

“Not _me_ ,” Connor said. “ _Us._ I was afraid—I _am_ afraid—you won’t think of me as the same. That you won’t know me.” He moved his hand up and down in front of his chest, indicating his body. “Because of this.”

It felt like Hank’s throat was closing up, but he squeezed Connor’s hand where it lay on his shoulder. “It’s not ‘this’ or ‘that,’ Connor. Just you. If my shitty old heart gave out and they stuck a plastic one in there, I would still be the same person.”

“Don’t say that,” Connor whispered. Now a tear crested and fell through his lashes.

“Okay, okay. Stupid example,” Hank said, brushing a hand over Connor’s hair and stroking the outer edge of his ear. “What I mean is that who you are isn’t just your hands or your feet or whatever. People don’t stop being themselves because they lose a leg. And that happens all the time with us. Androids are lucky. You can replace just about everything. Humans aren’t like that. But what makes any of us is right up here.” Hank tapped gently with two fingers at Connor’s temple. He forced a laugh, a desperate sound. “Sorry, Jack, you get stuck with all those memories. I’m not letting you go that easy.”

Connor seized Hank’s other hand and held it against his cheek. “Don’t let me go. There’s still too much to understand.”

“I know,” Hank said. “But I promise we’ll find these bastards—”

“No,” Connor said, cutting in forcefully. “So much about _you_ . The longer I know you, the more I realize how much I have left to learn. And it scares me because I’m not sure I could do it if I had six years with you—or _sixty_. I see you, I watch. I know you don’t like your face or your body. Or even your mind sometimes. But _I_ do. There’s only one Hank Anderson, and he has _this_ face, _this_ body, _this_ mind.” In an echoed gesture, he tapped Hank’s temple. “I know you say that we think alike, but there’s so much in here that I haven’t seen.”

“You don’t want to,” Hank said, lowering his eyes.

“I do. Dammit, Hank, I _do_.” Connor shook him lightly by the shoulder. “You think it’s frightening but what frightens me is _not_ seeing it, not understanding what made you who you are. You said you aren’t a good example of humanity, but that’s a lie. When I look at you, it’s _all_ I see. Hank...you are the _most_ human to me.”

“Jesus, Connor.” Hank could only manage a whisper. “I keep telling myself I’m a fucking idiot—that I’m selfish for wanting you around. Maybe you’re stupid for staying. Because it’s making me think that I can have good things. And _be_ good things. I want it like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Then have it,” Connor said, pressing his forehead against Hank’s. “Let me be here. I want to stay. And I’ll keep staying because that’s the only way I can prove it. I like when you hold me. I want you to do it more and touch me more and don’t stop. Please.”

Blood was rushing hard in Hank’s ears, his heartbeat slamming his ribcage. If Connor moved any closer he’d feel it. “Connor,” he said.

“Hank.” In Connor’s mouth it sounded like something good.

Hank’s breath came rapid and shallow. And then stopped altogether when he felt a warm mouth pressed up against his. For a second he couldn’t— _wouldn’t_ —move. Then he hauled Connor in close with a hand in the small of his back.

Connor clutched at his face, clinging like a drowning man and crushing their lips together until Hank felt the pinch of teeth.

He seized Connor’s chin firmly and guided him, easing the hard pressure and opening his mouth at the same time so he could slip his tongue inside.

Clawing at Hank’s sweatshirt, pulling his hair, Connor leaned into it like he was trying to dive down Hank’s throat: all messy and slick, rough and wild.

After everything Connor had just said, it was still a shock. But damned if Hank wasn’t going to reach out and hold it, use every movement—even the painful ones—to remind himself it was real. Connor pushed his tongue into Hank’s mouth, tasting like something strange: heavy and alkaline. It must be thirium; had he split his lip in the frenzy to get closer?

It didn’t matter. It spurred Hank on, even. He took a firm hold of Connor’s hair and sucked at his bottom lip until the unfamiliar taste flooded his mouth.

His own fingers buried deep in Hank’s hair, Connor suddenly went stiff. Tense, he turned his head to look toward the window over the sink. A trickle of blue spilled from the corner of his mouth and trailed down his chin.

“What?” Hank whispered. His own lips felt raw. “What is it?”

There were sounds—rapid footsteps—outside the living room window.

“Shit,” Hank hissed.

Connor clutched him closer, his body trembling. But it wasn’t fear. Hank felt a terrible energy build in the arms that held him, not directed at him but outward at the threat beyond the walls. He felt exhilaration and horror all at once.

A fist slammed against the front door.

“Open the fuck up, Anderson!” came Gavin Reed’s muffled voice. “Need to talk to you and your plastic friend.”

The footsteps were louder, now too loud. They weren’t boots but the thump of helicopter blades.

Grabbing Connor’s hand, Hank reached into his pocket with his free hand and opened a channel on the radio receiver to the sanctuary.

They waited for another knock to come, or the sound of a battering ram against the door.


	16. Interlude: September 2033

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry to everyone who caught the version of this interlude I posted before this. I went back and decided I didn't like the direction I'd taken it, so I deleted. I'm much happier with this one (but be prepared for requisite angst).

Getting Daniel out of bed most times was like trying to wake the dead. The very _cranky_ dead. But morning—at least those mornings that he was there—was one of the only times dealing with a pissy Daniel didn’t put Hank on edge.

In large part because _that_ version of Daniel was helplessly adorable.

First thing, as soon as Hank stirred, Daniel would whine and pull the blanket over his head. On work days there’d be no time to indulge. Hank would have to climb out of bed and trudge to the shower, leaving that warm little lump under the sheets.

But for a golden few months, having those lazy mornings off had been the sweetest goddamn thing Hank had experienced in a long time. When the blanket went over Daniel’s messy hair, Hank would smile. He’d roll over and settle on his back if he wasn’t already there. Slow enough to keep the covers from gapping, he’d slide one arm out from the warmth—typically the arm closest to Daniel. He’d start running his hand over the fabric, tracing every bump and curve he could reach: a narrow shoulder and skinny arm, torso with ribs he could count through the sheet. Down to Daniel’s waist, the jut of his hip bone.

If Hank woke up frisky, he might pinch that narrow ass through the blanket (that always got a truly indignant whine). If he felt lazier, he’d move up and scratch Daniel’s head. Even though he objected at first, the scratching was the easiest way to pull Daniel into daylight.

He was like a damn dog that way, leaning into Hank’s big, clumsy fingers all over his scalp with an eagerness that was anything but complicated. After a few minutes of that, the coast was probably clear to lean over and kiss him on the cheek and whisper promises of a planned breakfast: pancakes or eggs or something. Hank was a shit cook and Daniel would only pick at the food, but right then it didn’t much matter.

When he managed to catch Daniel in the mood for morning sex, the butt pinch usually drew some teasing complaint. _You’re mean_ , he would whine. _I hate you_. But it wasn’t the flat _No_ that meant “leave me alone.” That one typically happened when he’d just come back from a bender.

On those mornings, Hank was almost always too tired from being worried and too angry to want to be close. Anyway, the first couple of days Daniel spent coming down from the drug were marked by sour, rank detox sweats that soaked the blankets.

When he leveled out, Hank stripped the bed to wash everything and dumped Daniel in the tub.

None of it he minded, because after that routine came a narrow window of bliss. A few days when Daniel smelled healthy again below the clean sheets—a little powdery, a little tangy. Just man and bare skin and sleep. He wanted to get close, too, hauling Hank’s big arm to drape over him, nestling into the shape of Hank’s body and pushing his bony ass up against Hank’s crotch, sighing and wriggling until they were both hard.

Hank would pull him off with lazy strokes, forgetting to care when Daniel came that the bedding had just been washed. Afterward, Daniel was easy to guide onto his belly—dazed and humming with afterglow—so Hank could scatter small kisses over his neck and shoulders, press him into the mattress, fuck him slowly and feel him breathe in the same rhythm.

On one of these precious days—just one—Daniel had burrowed even further below the blankets, somehow flipping his body like a performing seal and ending up pulling at Hank’s boxers with warm, damp hands. He had yanked the sheet down hard when Hank had tried to peer in, then proceeded to suck him off without surfacing once.

As somebody who ran hot, Hank hated the suffocating feeling of fabric over his face. But Daniel never seemed to mind being cocooned like that, drowned in the odor of sex.

After Hank had finished, Daniel had shimmied up his body with a filthy little grin, and promptly leaned over to kiss a mouthful of Hank’s own come right into his mouth. Hank had sputtered and coughed while Daniel laughed like a maniac.

When Hank could pull himself together, he shot Daniel a glare.

Daniel made a face that was trying at apologetic but ended up mostly mischievous.

With a growl, Hank surged forward and dug his fingertips into those prominent ribs, making Daniel shriek like a tomcat. He was so ticklish that usually Hank shied away from touching his sides, his armpits, or—God forbid—the soles of his feet.

“You little shit,” Hank said, laughing, diving in to nibble at the side of Daniel’s neck.

“You love me,” Daniel said, slinging his thin arms around Hank’s neck.

At least after that they were kissing, so Hank didn’t have to say anything back, even if they were only joking.  

Daniel nipped Hank’s lip, kissed the two-day-old stubble on his chin. “Make me feel good,” he whispered.

Hank told him, “Earn it.” He hauled Daniel up to straddle his hips. He was so damn easy to move around, like a doll. So easy to break. It worried Hank almost every time they touched.

Giving a wicked grin, Daniel slipped spidery white fingers down to stroke his cock.

Hank tucked both hands behind his head and enjoyed the show.

Daniel got distracted the closer he got to coming—woozy, even—swaying back and forth like a drunk. But it wasn’t the same as when he was high. Here, now, he was loose and everything was smoothed over. While strung out, he seemed permanently clenched, his little muscles as tight as possible and trembling with the effort. It didn’t say _pleasure_. It said _torture_.

At least this was nice: the small noises he made, the way his tongue would flick out to wet his lips every now and then. And finally he grabbed at Hank’s side and belly, ragged nails scraping over skin that wasn’t nearly as soft or plump back then. His almost-invisible eyebrows drew in and he came with little hitching breaths, spilling over the thatch of Hank’s chest hair, which hadn’t yet begun to turn gray.

“Good, baby,” Hank said, worked up all over again. He smiled and reached down and tapped on Daniel’s tailbone with his cock.

Lazy and satiated, Daniel rose up and sank down again, easy like stepping into water. Everything was easier when he was sober.

In the shower later, Daniel tipped his head back, wetting down that dandelion puff of hair. When it stuck flat and damp against his forehead, badly in need of a trim, he looked so fragile Hank was afraid to breathe.

Later, they sat on the couch in sloppy clothes, picking at snack mix in a big bowl set between them. Daniel was pulling out the pretzels, sucking off the seasoning, then putting them back.

“That’s fucking disgusting,” Hank said, more amused than anything.

“I don’t like the pretzels,” Daniel said. “Just the stuff on them.” He huffed and moved the bowl over to the side table, then leaned against Hank’s side. “You’re too good for me,” he said, so softly Hank thought he’d imagined it.

It was also shocking because prior to leaving for his latest binge, Daniel had shouted at Hank _You don’t deserve me!_ before running out the door with his shitty sneakers still untied.

Hank reached over and ran his fingertips through hair that was still damp. “No, I’m not.”

“But I’m bad for you,” Daniel continued. “I’m bad.”

To that, Hank couldn’t think of anything to say.

A couple of months afterward, giving the okay to put what was left of Daniel into a pine box and burn it to ash, Hank asked Tina for a last look. Inside the body bag, Daniel’s blue eyes were partly open and wouldn’t close. His hair was sticky with frozen blood.

Hank zipped him up again. He knew “sometimes good” shouldn’t be good enough.

At the same time, he was afraid it was the best he’d ever get.


	17. Baltimore - November 2048

Hank reluctantly pulled his hand away from Connor’s back and felt for the outline of the pistol underneath his own sweatshirt. The gun he’d taken off the torn-up remains of the collection van driver was still tucked into his waistband, the metal warm against his skin.

“Did you bring the gun?” he asked Connor in a whisper.

“Yes.” His voice was hard and flat.

It could have been that he had switched off his emotions, but Hank was so used to him having responses engaged that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell anymore. Things that had happened a week ago, two weeks, had started to seem like they came out of past lives.

“They won’t hurt you,” Connor said in that same dark tone.

Hank grabbed his bicep hard. “You talk to me before you go off and do something stupid. Okay?” No reaction. He shook Connor, digging his fingertips into the flesh of his arm. “Connor. You understand?”

Finally, he looked over, his face softening. With a gentle hand at the crown of Hank’s head, he drew him forward far enough to briefly kiss his temple. “I won’t risk myself if it isn’t necessary. There’s too much to live for.”

Hank didn’t have the luxury of choking up, falling apart, so he only nodded and clutched the back of Connor’s neck for a second or two.

Reed hammered on the door again. “Come out quiet with your hands up and nothing’ll happen to you. You have my promise. That goes for the android, too.”

“We’re outgunned,” Connor said, drawing the pistol from below his jacket. “A firefight would be a poor choice.”

Hank drew his own gun. “Last resort. But a promise from Reed is worth jack shit, I’m telling you now.”

Nodding, Connor said, “I figured as much.”

“We have to break down the door, it’s gonna get ugly,” Reed shouted.

“Is Detective Reed valuable to the Baltimore Police Department?” Connor asked.

Hank let his gun sink a little, confused. “He’s closed some cases, yeah.”

“As leverage,” Connor clarified.

“Shit.” Hank’s eyes went wide. “You want to take a hostage?”

“It would buy time until others arrive from the sanctuary.”

Shaking his head, Hank said, “Even with Markus gone for now, I’m not sure I’d count on back-up.”

“This is your last chance, Anderson,” Reed called. “Past this door, I can’t control what happens.”

Hank knew that was true. All the SWAT officers had cams, but cams could malfunction. The inside of the house was a blind spot. And while the city needed Connor’s brain to find the sanctuary, Hank had always figured he’d be collateral damage.

“No other choice,” he told Connor. “I’ll grab Reed if you can take care of the guys with him.” Hank spun the pistol in his hand and held it out grip-first.

Connor hesitated a half-second, then took it.

“We’re surrounded, but it’ll take a few seconds for them to regroup,” Hank said. “That’s all the time we’ll have to let them know we’ve got their guy. Might give us more of a window.”

“All right, Hank. I’m ready.”

They moved toward the door at a crouch, Hank with his fingertips nearly touching the linoleum and Connor hunched above him, a gun in each hand.

Thank fuck the door opened to the inside of the house. Straining at arm’s length to reach, Hank flipped the deadbolt and yanked the door open.

Deafening gunfire exploded over his head: three shots all at once, a moment’s pause, then two more.

Reed had crouched right away when he found himself facing down two barrels and a pissed-off murder machine. Good reflexes, but the noise and confusion slowed him down enough that he ducked his head and crossed his gun arm over his chest.

At least it was pointed toward the wall, because when Hank grabbed Reed by the collar of his jacket, the pistol discharged, showering both of them with brick fragments. He used the momentum of the body hurtling toward him to get them both well out of the way of the door. Before Connor slammed it closed again, Hank caught a brief glimpse of splayed legs and arms, the soles of boots.

No heads—the enhanced rounds had essentially vaporized them, helmets and all.

Hank curled in on himself so he would roll as he fell backward. Not having expected this, Gavin Reed came in much less gracefully, landing on one shoulder beside Hank and knocking his chin sharply on the linoleum floor.

The hit stunned him and allowed Hank to grab the gun and pull.

Reed’s finger was still inside the trigger guard, and he let out a shriek as it was caught and bent at an uncomfortable angle before Hank managed to get it out of his grip.

Connor was on him at once, yanking both hands behind his back. He was angry—and probably frightened—but it didn’t stop him from making quick calculations as to how much force would subdue Reed without tearing his arms off.

Reed yelped again as Connor hauled him to his feet, then let loose a flood of swearing, almost a babble. He was scared, too.

Hank couldn’t drum up much sympathy.

“You are so fucked! Holy shit, Anderson! You and your toy here are fucking _fucked_ —”

Trying not to waste too much energy, Hank slapped him across the mouth, very much in the same way that Amanda Stern had done on the way out of the courthouse.

_On the day Hank and Connor had met_.

“Your comm,” Hank said.

“Fuck you,” Reed spat. Right away, his face screwed up and he let out a squeal. Trying with absolutely no success to squirm away from the pain, he shouted, “Left ear! Left ear!” He hung his head, panting, as Connor let up.

Hank hadn’t heard a crack, but he was pretty sure human fingers could bend a long, painful way before they broke. He pushed Reed’s face against Connor’s shoulder, scrabbling for the tiny commlink in his ear for a moment or two before he snagged it. There was no time for distaste; he grimaced and popped the device into his own ear. He tapped it to life.

“Team leader,” Hank said, “this is interior. We’ve got your boy.”

“Anderson,” said an unfamiliar voice.

“That’s right,” Hank said.

“I need proof of life,” came the man’s voice again.

Hank turned. “Say ‘hi,’ Gavin.”

“Get in here!” Reed shouted.

“Confirmed,” the guy said. “You don’t have anywhere to go. This is a bad idea. If you and the android surrender, you won’t be hurt.”

Hank looked up at Connor, who was shaking his head. He didn’t know why he was surprised—of course Connor was listening in.

“What are they saying?” Reed asked, frantic. “Why the fuck isn’t anybody storming this place?”

“For some reason I can’t fathom,” Hank said to him, “they may not want you to die.”

The voice over the commlink said, “We need the android intact.”

“Or not,” Hank told Reed, unable to suppress a brief grin. “Just like I figured. You’re expendable, Reed.” What he didn’t say was _Just like me_.

“ _What?_ ” Reed asked.

Looking at his face, Hank knew up until that moment he’d honestly expected a rescue or a negotiation.

“We’ll make it quick, Anderson,” said the team leader. “If you decide to fight it out, it’s going to be messy.”

Flicking a glance up at Connor again, Hank decided to take a chance. “You’re not using the diamond alloy rounds. You can’t take the risk of damaging him.”

The two-second pause told Hank what he needed to know.

“We don’t need the body intact,” the team leader said. “Just the head.”

Fear and rage spiked together inside Hank’s chest, making it hard to breathe. He forced out the next words, anyway. “You can do some damage, that’s right. But Connor is still going to be picking off your guys long after me and Reed go down.”

“They’re not going to shoot me!” Reed said, indignant.

Connor put a hand over his mouth. It was clear he’d gotten a little bite in, but Connor barely reacted, moving his hand away to clamp it around Reed’s throat.

With his airway all but blocked, Reed started to panic, writhing in Connor’s grip. He looked like a beetle pinned to a card, still moving.

“Shut your mouth,” Connor hissed in his ear. “Do you understand?”

A nod.

Hank stepped away as Connor released Reed’s neck and the detective began coughing and gasping. “You’d easily be sacrificing an entire team for an android you may not even get.”

“We’ll bring in the other one,” the team leader said.

Hank’s head snapped up at that, he and Connor sharing a terrified look. The city had another RK model android. A thing with Connor’s face and body, but still enslaved to Panagakos’s modifications. And nothing yet to make him _human_. Of all the things Hank felt at that moment, it was pity that he least expected. This other android was nothing but a weapon because it— _he_ —had never known differently.

“You’re not getting out of this, Anderson,” came the voice over the comm. “You’re—”

Hank tapped the commlink earpiece as it was suddenly cut off. “Leader, this is interior,” he said. “Don’t go dark on me.”

All three of them—Hank, Connor, and Reed—flinched when they heard gunfire outside the living room window. Another few rounds popped off at the other end of the house, beyond the bedroom.

Connor hefted his pistol and forced Reed to his knees. “Stay down,” he said.

“Aw, fuck,” Reed moaned, the short exclamation enough to get across that he was pretty sure he was about to get capped.

But Connor held the pistol at the ready, waiting for windows to start breaking.

Hank forced himself to breathe steadily. Instead of the thump of a battering ram on the door, he heard the little radio receiver crackle. It lit a tiny spark of hope in his chest that flared up when someone outside screamed.

“Hank, Connor!” The voice from the receiver belonged to North. “Respond if you’re in there.”

Hank dove for the device, snatching it up and smashing the button on the side. “We’re here. Nobody’s hurt.”

Little bursts of gunfire crackled around the house. Another scream began and then was choked off.

“Not sure if they’ve called in back-up,” North said. The sound of the helicopter got louder, drowning her out.

The living room wall rattled, taking fire from an automatic rifle. A second afterward, the window shattered. Ducking around the dividing wall, Hank saw a white searchlight swoop over the grass and the dog run.

“North!” he shouted into the receiver. “Come in!” He yanked the device away from his ear when someone on the other end squeezed off several rounds, close and loud.

“Drawing fire from overhead!” came North’s voice again. “Trying to take out the gunman, but we need to get out of here!”

“Stay close to the house,” Hank told her. “They want Connor intact.”

The receiver went silent for a few long seconds. The helicopter’s searchlight swept over the house again, angling inside the glass on the front door long enough to throw Connor and Reed—on his knees with head bowed and hands in the air—into brief shadow.

A terrible quiet settled around the house for a moment or two. Then two shots from close by the dog run. Something hit the chain link fence hard a second later, sending up a metallic shiver. Hank wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it had been.

“Now’s your window!” North shouted. “Move!”

Connor hauled Reed to his feet by his collar and pulled him toward the front door.

Hank brought up the rear.

Freezing wind blew in as Connor threw the door open. In any other circumstance it would have been funny watching Reed stumble and swear as he was dragged through the obstacle-ridden entryway, his hands flapping around Connor’s iron grip on his neck. Except that the things he tripped over were headless bodies, spilling red puddles that had already started to freeze around the edges.

“Fuck me,” Reed wailed, trying as he went to scuff off the splashes of blood in patches of dead grass.

“There’s another RK android on the way with back-up,” Hank said. “We need to be gone.” He half-lowered his gun on instinct as two figures came around from the side of the house, but it was only Josh and his partner Mellody, who had blood splashed in a fan shape across the left side of her face and her bright red hair.

It was possible she’d torn out someone’s throat or punched through their damn ribcage to get it there, but Hank still couldn’t imagine her doing damage like that. North, on the other hand…

“Who the fuck is that?” asked North, tipping her head toward the squirming Reed.

“Inside man,” Hank told her.

“No room,” she said. “Kill him.”

“Wait!” Reed shouted.

“He’s got information,” said Connor.

“That’s right,” said Reed. “I’ve got information.” His gaze was flitting back and forth between North and Hank.

It gave Hank a great deal of satisfaction to know he was the only thing standing between Gavin Reed and a bullet to the brain. He nodded to North.

She rolled her eyes. “Jesus. Put him in the trunk.”

There was a sleek sports car parked by the curb, its smooth lines interrupted by a couple of ugly bullet holes. From the looks of the thing, fixing it up would cost more than buying at least two new Tesla sedans.

Its rear hatch popped open. Not a lot of room; Reed was going to be pretty uncomfortable for a while.

“The other car—” Hank started.

“Leave it,” said North. “We want speed right now.”

If Reed was planning to put up any trouble, Connor headed that off by clipping him hard with the butt of the pistol. He slumped without a sound and Connor heaved his limp body into the trunk.

The damn car had gull-wing doors that popped up with a chirp when North hit another button.

“Good God,” Hank said.

“It’s Elijah’s,” said North.

“Of course it is.”

Connor vaulted into the back seat, then helped Hank in beside him. Well, less _helping_ and more _lifting bodily_ , but Hank still had enough scraps of pride to pretend otherwise. Mellody leapt onto Connor’s lap, the ends of her hair slapping wetly against the leather seat. With Josh in the passenger seat and North behind the wheel, the ridiculous doors snapped shut and they peeled out with enough g’s to make an astronaut puke.

Even though she was seated on Connor’s lap, Mellody leaned forward and touched the hollow of Josh’s elbow, trailing her fingers down to take his hand and squeeze it firmly.

Watching it made a lump rise in Hank’s throat. He almost flinched when he felt cool fingers on the back of his own hand.

Connor was smiling softly over at him.

He turned his hand over and clasped Connor’s fingers tight. “Thank you,” he said to North. “We weren’t sure—”

“We protect our own,” North said.

Josh turned in his seat. “You risked yourselves to help us. It was the least we could do.”

Near the seawall, North swung the car into the abandoned garage, catching air over the ramp on the way down.

There was a distinct thump from the trunk. Hank sort of hoped Reed was awake.

He was, but still groggy when they pulled him out.

Connor slung him over one shoulder.

Reed groaned softly, his hands grabbing at air, but he didn’t put up a fuss.

When they were inside the atrium, Connor asked, “Did Markus come back?”

Mellody shot a look at Josh.

“For a little while,” North said. There was some emotion in her voice, but it was unclear. She didn’t look back. “He was against our going to find you.”

“I shouldn’t have run,” Connor said. “It was stupid. Childish.”

North sighed heavily. “It wasn’t just that. He’s convinced helping the androids that are being murdered would make the sanctuary vulnerable.”

“He’s not wrong,” said Hank.

“We know,” said Josh. “But he has to know we can’t keep hiding forever. That’s the reason for the _Jericho_.”

“The _Jericho_?” Hank asked. “That replica ship?”

North turned and put a finger to her lips, then pointed at Reed.

Hank caught Connor’s eye, seeing that he was curious, too. Later, though. They had to deal with Reed first.

Connor toted the half-conscious detective up to a conference room on the second level—one that could be locked from the outside.

After being dumped in a chair, Reed clutched his head, groaning. “I can’t fuckin’ see straight,” he muttered.

“You should be fine,” Connor said, the words clipped. “I aimed the blow to minimize trauma.”

“Yeah?” Reed looked up, squinting. “Thanks _so_ much for that.”

“Hey,” Hank said, grabbing Reed’s wrist and squeezing the trigger finger that was now swollen and purplish-red.

Reed winced and gave a yelp.

“Might want to cut the attitude, shithead,” Hank told him. “You’ve got zero leverage here, considering your own guys were ready to take you down.” He let go of the hand, and Reed shook it in the air, hissing in pain.

“Could we have some water, please?” Connor asked.

Mellody walked out of the room with Josh, soundless.

Hank pulled up a chair in front of Reed, Connor sitting beside him.

Reed raised his head. “Well, Anderson. Your little—your _associate_ here got his chance. You want to hit me, too? I know you’ve always thought about it.”

Hank saw his expression was set firm, but there was a sheen of fear in his eyes. Just about the last person on earth he wanted to feel sorry for was Gavin fucking Reed, but it snuck up on him. He even regretted messing with Reed’s obviously injured finger. “Not going to hit you, Gavin.” Hank paused, looking up at Connor. “I know what it’s like when the people who are supposed to have your back sell you out.”

The surprise and distrust on Reed’s face was uncomfortable, but only because it was _familiar_. Hank remembered that same hunted feeling. He’d learned as a kid not to go along too easy if someone didn’t take the first chance to fuck you over, because that usually meant bigger, uglier hurt down the line. Just then, he saw the same kid in Gavin’s face: a wary little shitkicker with jackass parents and friends who only stuck around while it was convenient. Suddenly, there was a hell of a lot Hank wanted to say, none of which was likely a good idea at that point.

Luckily, Mellody returned with a bottle of water and handed it to Connor.

Reed even shrank back when Connor twisted the cap off. But he took the bottle when it was handed over, taking a few gulps and swiping the back of his messed-up hand across his mouth.

“We can have someone look at your injuries in a little while,” Connor told Reed. There might not have been anyone with medical training in the sanctuary, but the cut on the back of his head at least could be cleaned, the mangled finger splinted.

Hank felt a strange pressure in his chest, like holding a breath underwater. Connor had been ruthless in crisis, but he knew it didn’t translate here. What’s more, he saw Reed was afraid.

It made Hank think back to the time Luther had blown out a suspect’s knee. He’d questioned the guy, holding firm through the screaming and begging, until the bus had come to haul him away. What the suspect spilled turned out to be a good lead. But someone in pain like that could have said damn near anything to get it to let up, when there would be plenty of time later. He wasn’t going to get far cuffed to a hospital bed with his kneecap in a thousand pieces.

“Just want to ask you a couple of questions,” Hank said.

“You’re going to turn me back over to them,” Reed said right away.

“No,” Connor said. “It wouldn’t be safe for us.”

“Or for you,” added Hank. “Do you know the name Zachariah Panagakos?”

Reed frowned. “No.”

“What about Piotr Andronikov?” asked Connor.

“I’m not the fucking U.N.,” Reed said. “I don’t know any of those people. I just work for Stern. I do what she tells me.”

Hank scratched his chin. “Did she order the raid on my place?”

A nod from Reed.

“Fowler know about it?” Hank asked.

“Man, everybody knew about it. Something about some guys got ripped apart out by the port.”

At that, Hank looked up at Connor. “They pinned it on me?” he asked Reed.

“You and—and _him_.” Reed flopped a hand vaguely in Connor’s direction.

“As an excuse to raid the house.”

Reed shrugged. “They said it was retrieval. Get, you know, his processor thing. You were an accident.” He actually looked up at Hank. “Well, _supposed_ to be.”

“The men at the port,” Connor said, his face blank, “that wasn’t Hank.”

“Didn’t matter,” Reed said, huffing.

“It was me.”

Reed’s eyes went wide and he sat back.

Connor leaned forward, though only a little. “Whoever in city leadership is working with Panagakos wants what I have in my brain.” He looked around the room at Josh, Mellody, and North. “What these androids now have. They’ll shoot you down without a second thought, Detective Reed, if it means getting closer to me.”

“Yeah,” Reed said. The word was heavy with bitterness. “Stern,” he repeated. “Whatever it is, it’s probably Stern. She’s fucking...Charlie Manson in designer heels.”

“What about the drugs?” Hank asked him. “The poisoned sten.”

After staring open-mouthed for a second or two, Reed fairly jumped in his seat. “Yeah!” he said. “That’s all her. That’s why she pulled me off Vice after you, uh—” He looked up at Hank: almost apologetic but not quite. “I told her I could use my distribution contacts, make whatever happen.”

Hank shook his head. “I saw a nineteen-year-old kid in the morgue, dried out like a goddamn mummy because of whatever you made happen.”

For the first time, Reed looked honestly guilty. “I fucked up, Anderson. A _lot_.”

“Yeah, you did,” Hank told him, though more softly. “But nobody gets out of this without a mark on them. The guys at the port, all the ones who raided the house—guys with families—they’re on our hands. You just need to decide when it comes down to it whether you’re going to cover your ass like always or put an end to this shit.”

Hank stood up and stretched, his spine crackling. He was way past caring if Gavin Reed thought he was old and worn out.

Connor stood as well.

Mellody approached and put one hand on Connor’s elbow. “I can get somebody to look at his head and his hand. Julian was an EMT before all this.”

“Thank you,” said Connor, nodding and reaching over to briefly touch her knuckles.  

“Can we put someone on the door?” Hank asked. “And maybe get him a mattress.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Josh said.

As Hank and Connor were walking out of the room, Reed called, “Hey, Anderson. I have no idea what the fuck I’m supposed to do.”

Hank stopped and half-turned, absently running a hand through his hair. “Well, hopefully you’ll figure it out.”

“What’s the poison thing you were talking about?” North asked as they walked down the hall.

“Someone—well, the mayor—has been spiking the sten supply with abrin,” Hank said.

Seeing North’s confused expression, Connor added, “It’s a plant toxin. Fatal in even small quantities.”

“Sten—that’s the drug they take at the tent settlement?” North asked.

Hank nodded.

“I went there once or twice with Markus,” she said. “It’s one of the places we look for deviants.”

“Yeah,” Hank said, “when we ran across Kamski he was trying to help an android who might have been going deviant. He said new deviancy might look the same as someone freaking out on the drug.”

“Hm,” said North. “So they figure the humans helping deviants are also taking the drug. Nobody left to help, nowhere for the deviants to go.” She sniffed, her mouth curling downward in distaste. “They think we can’t do anything on our own. Fucking meat sacks.” She looked over at Hank. “No offense.” There wasn’t the slightest note of apology in her tone.

Hank smiled. “None taken. I am absolutely a meat sack.”

“Well,” she said, solemn again, “for once, humans aren’t the only ones we have to worry about. Knowing they have another one of your line, Connor—that changes the rules.”

“It isn’t humans _or_ androids we need to worry about most,” Hank said. Getting a nod from Connor, he told North just what Kamski had said about the entity he called Chloe.

She swore softly. “And you’re not off the network?” she asked Connor.

He looked down at his feet, shaking his head. “I can still access the feed. I don’t know what, if anything, would cause me to deviate. Doctor Kamski—Elijah—hasn’t figured out why it happens.”

North shrugged. “Maybe deviating is like falling in love. You can’t tell how or when, but you know when you get there.” The smile she showed them was heavy somehow.

Hank knew it had to do with Markus, but whether it was the way he’d acted since he and Connor had arrived or something long before that, he couldn’t say. He wanted to tell her he understood what it meant to try to get your arms around a person with something huge always in between you and them. Daniel’s first love had been the drug. Hank didn’t want to ask how many times North had tried to get close to Markus, only to find herself blocked by the ghost of Simon Brandt.

He looked over at Connor, then, who was still staring at the floor, marking his steady footsteps.

North glanced down the hall to make sure they were out of earshot of Josh, Mellody, and their “hostage.” She put a hand on her hip, furrowing her brow. “With Markus gone indefinitely, I’m assuming leadership here at the sanctuary. If you have any objections, you might want to speak up now.”

Hank shook his head, noting that Connor did, as well.

“It may not be important to Markus to stop the murder of the re-activated androids, but it is to me.” She stood up straight and squared her shoulders. “I want to spearhead an operation to find this Panagakos, even if we don’t shut him down right away.”

“What did you have in mind?” Hank asked.

“Bait,” said North. “Specifically, me.”

Connor frowned. “We tried that. Scheduled a pick-up from CyberLife.”

Hank put a hand on his shoulder. “It almost got him killed.”

“I’m talking about infiltrating the scrapyard itself,” North said. Some sort of emotion flickered over her face—or it could have been many at once. “I’m...an unusual model. One of a line created for sex work, but not stuff like at the Eden Club. I mean high-end escort services, exclusive clientele. Lots of money changing hands. None of which I could touch, of course. Having to stick around, fuck those rich pricks for two months after I’d deviated...I’ve never had to do anything harder in my life. But it was worth it to find a permanent way out.”

“Jesus,” Hank whispered. “No wonder Kamski pisses you off.”

The smile she gave in response was blade-sharp and not at all comfortable. “Elijah has apologized, but I’m guessing he was seeing dollar signs back in ‘thirty-six when Congress decided androids don’t get to choose who we fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” Connor said. His dark eyes were damp.

At the same time Hank worried that Connor _felt_ so much, he was ready to choke the life out of anybody who tried to take that sensitivity away from him. It was a fierce and not entirely rational urge, considering that feeling deeply had landed Hank neck-deep in shit more than once before.

“It’s over now,” North said. “But I can imagine these sick bastards would love to get their hands on someone like me. And if we can use that, it’s selfish not to try.”

Hank was almost weak-kneed with admiration. He didn’t come across a lot of noble people in his line of work. Most of them were grubbing cowards like Preston or Reed. Maybe even Kamski. He thought he’d lost almost all of them with Luther and Kara gone, but there had been a sudden flood: Josh, Mellody, North.

And Connor. Always Connor.

Hank took a deep breath and pointed a thumb back at the closed door down the hall. “Since he doesn’t know anything about Panagakos, it might be our best shot.”

“We’ll be there to back you up,” Connor told North. “Are there any others you would ask?”

She nodded. “Probably Josh and Mellody. Maybe...a couple more.” She couldn’t hide the obvious wish for Markus’s support.

“We’ll be ready,” Hank said. His flex buzzed in his pocket. He’d almost forgotten he was carrying it. Fumbling for a few seconds, dipping into every pocket—none of it turned up his Dot. He swore and looked at the flex screen. It was Tina Chen.

“Hank,” she started.

Just the use of his first name meant trouble, never mind the fact that her voice was hushed and shaking.

“Doc, what is it?”

“Fuck, man. We’re filling up. It’s like goddamn tsunami hit.” Something slammed in the background and Chen inhaled sharply.

Glancing up to acknowledge Connor’s concerned look, Hank said, “Slow down. What’s going on?”

“Magpies,” Chen whispered. “I’m pretty sure. They started hauling them in half an hour ago and it just hasn’t stopped. There’ll be more when the hospitals realize they can’t do anything.”

“Oh, Christ,” Hank said. “The sten.” He felt a sudden surge of anger at Amanda Stern, and right afterward gave serious thought to marching back down the hallway and knocking Gavin Reed’s teeth down his throat.

But Chen said, “There’s no way they’re not going to know. Am I safe?”

“No,” Hank said immediately. “I’m going to come get you. Hold tight.” He ended the call and looked up at North. “I may have to back out of the operation if we’re launching now. A friend of mine” —he shot a glance over at Connor— “a friend of _ours_ is in trouble.”

North shook her head. “We need time to plan. As much as I hate thinking another android will die, if we don’t do this right, no one gets saved.” She dug into the pocket of her light jacket and produced the key to Kamski’s outrageous car.

Hank palmed the fob, nodding again.

“I’m coming with you,” Connor told him.

“I think Doc Chen would be happy to have you there,” Hank said. “Even happier if she’d seen some of the shit you can do.”

Connor looked down, half-embarrassed and half-pleased. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Hank began to walk away, Connor falling in step beside him.

“Hank,” North called. “If you’re bringing this person here, I need to know we can trust him.”

He cracked a smile, turning back toward her. “Her,” he said. “And yeah. I’d trust Tina Chen with my life. She’s a medical examiner, so I’d trust her with my death, too.”

North nodded, still grim.

“North,” Hank said, making her look up. “I don’t know how Markus was as a leader here. But I think if you’re at the helm now, people are going to be just fine. Better than.”

At that, she allowed a little smile. “Good luck.”

Despite the circumstances, Hank couldn’t help but feel a slight thrill as he climbed into the low-slung bucket seat of the sports car. Age could take a lot out of you, make you feel like a moth-eaten sweater some days, but getting behind the wheel of a hot car never failed to get the old testosterone going. He was even more tempted to wish all of the bullshit away because this was certainly the first time he’d been in a sexy car with someone as incredible as Connor next to him.

He found himself indulging that old, childish wish for the power to stop time—to snap his fingers and have two hours on a quiet highway amid frozen cars, cutting through the still air outside and Connor’s hand warm in his. They could drive to the shipping dock, reclaim the place with good memories instead of fear. Talk awhile in the unmoving morning light and then stop talking altogether, Hank kissing Connor’s palm and his wrist, pulling him into his lap.

“Have you thought about it?” Connor’s voice cut through his daydream.

“Huh? About what?”

“You know,” Connor said.

Hank smiled. “Yeah. I was just thinking about it.”

“Do you regret it?”

That made Hank nearly stomp the brake on instinct. “Kissing you? Hell, no, I don’t regret it. I’d want to do it again. But like you said, things are heavy.”

Connor nodded. “I worry. About you. All the time. I worry about _us_. That something will happen and everything will stop.”

“I know,” Hank said. “I hope you know I worry about you, too. I did even before I wanted to. Before I admitted some things to myself. And I understand, Connor. I really do. Part of what makes a good thing so good is realizing it could end.” He sniffed, then sighed out hard. “A lot of good things do. That’s the way life is.”

“I’m beginning to understand why Carl would have suffered if he had lived and Ralph didn’t,” Connor said carefully. “Or if Ralph had lived while Carl died. If I were to die—”

“Hey,” Hank cut in. He wasn’t ready to talk about it or ready to hear Connor say it. “We’re not going to dwell on that right now. We push forward, do the things we need to get done. You stick close to me, and I promise I’ll stick close to you.”

“Okay, Hank.”

The flashy car was going to stick out in a sea of grubby coroner vans and squad cars, so Hank parked around the block. He voice-texted a message to Chen, hoping she was wearing her Dot. After a few moments, she came around the corner, jog-walking in beat-up sneakers and scrub pants, clutching the thin, white lab coat over her middle.

Hank was reluctant to trigger the doors until she was closer, but she definitely wouldn’t expect him to show up in a ride like this. The gull-wings rose with a faint hiss and Connor stood up, motioning Chen over.

There was a definite hitch in her stride when she caught sight of the car.

“Sweet Jesus on rye toast,” Chen said as she came close. “How did you end up in _this_ thing?”

“Long-ass story,” Hank said. “Just get in.”

She swung into the back seat.

It took a second for Hank to figure out that the clicking he heard was the sound of Chen’s teeth chattering from the cold.

Instead of climbing into the passenger seat, Connor got in the back beside her.

Hopefully he could help warm her up. Hank remembered the trick with the beer and figured it could go both ways. In the rear view mirror, he saw Connor putting an arm around her shoulders, so he smiled and pressed the button to shut the doors.

As soon as he’d punched the ignition tab, he heard Chen’s voice from the back seat.

“Hank?”

A glance in the mirror showed her wide-eyed, tense.

Connor was holding her, but painfully close now, pulling her body near his and her head closer to the muzzle of the gun he held at her temple.

Hank felt an enormous, dark pit open inside his gut.

“Shut off the engine, Hank,” Connor told him.

On instinct, Hank raised his hands, then lowered one very slowly to push the ignition button. “I’m going to turn around now,” he said.

“Slowly.” Connor didn’t sound like himself.

The first thing Hank thought was that somehow the other RK model had taken his place. Sometime when no one noticed or was looking. It was terrible, but even that notion was better than believing Connor—the _real_ Connor—would do something like this. Hank swiveled to face the back seat, his heart pounding.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Connor, this isn’t you.”

“Connor isn’t here right now,” the familiar mouth said with that unfamiliar voice. “Care to leave a message?”

“Does Stern have him?” Hank asked.

“Stern!” the Connor-thing laughed. “You might consider her a force to be reckoned with, but she doesn’t see what I do. Doesn’t know what I do. Not by an order of magnitude she could comprehend.”

The sinking feeling in Hank’s belly grew and got colder. He almost didn’t want to say the name. “Chloe?”

“If you like. It’s what Elijah called me.”

Hands still raised, Hank said, “I’ll call you whatever you want. Please don’t hurt them.”

“I don’t think I’ll have to,” Chloe said with Connor’s mouth. “I saw Elijah, and then I didn’t. That’s unacceptable. I want you to bring him to me.”

Hank very nearly said, _I’ll take you to him_ , but remembered the block on the deviants’ location and movements. For a desperate second, he considered that might be a way to pull Chloe out, but he couldn’t even risk starting the car for fear that Chloe would use Connor’s body to kill Tina...or all of them. “I can do that,” Hank said. “I’m going to reach into my pocket, okay? There’s a radio receiver in there.”

“Clever,” said Chloe. “He always was clever.”

If Hank wasn’t wrong, there was a hint of fondness in her words. “We can’t be right here, though. My friend—the one you’re holding there—she’s in danger. Will you let me move to another place? It’s not far.”

“Yes,” Chloe said. “If I lose contact at any point with RK-eight-hundred-one-twelve, I will decommission the cortex upon re-establishment. Do you understand?”

Panic gripped Hank tight. “Yes, I understand. I promise he’ll be here.” He turned, hating having to look away at the road. At the same time, he slipped the receiver from his sweatshirt pocket.

Connor-Chloe, her eyes dull, still held Tina close.

She made a small noise when the engine started again; Hank saw Connor’s hand pushing the gun against her skin.

“You’re going to be okay, Doc,” said Hank. “We’re all going to be okay.”

Kamski didn’t ask Hank to explain when he told him someone wanted to speak with him. He only promised to meet them near Franklin Square Park. If Tina had any objections, she didn’t voice them. Besides, Hank wanted to see the Gallery for himself.

That wasn’t happening, though. It became clear the closer they got. Black-and-whites with their lights blazing were parked behind temporary barricades on almost all of the cross streets. Officers in scarves with coffee in hand huffed mist into the air.

Hank parked along Fayette close to Norris—the same place he’d stopped when first bringing Connor to see the Gallery. He was about to radio in to Kamski when the receiver crackled and he heard: “I see you.”

Kamski was wearing a dark green jacket, not the bright orange hoodie, but with that car they couldn’t have stood out more if they tried. “I have the car tracked,” he said. “I wasn’t aware North had loaned it out this morning.”

Hank clenched his jaw. Still a petty little asshole, even in dire straits.

Connor-Chloe had put the gun away, but still held Tina close, one long arm draped over her upper chest, ready at any point to tighten into a chokehold she’d never escape.

Kamski went to clasp his hands behind his back, but thought better of it and held them at his sides, palm up, showing he was unarmed. “Chloe,” he said. “I’d hoped if we met again, it wouldn’t be this way.”

“You conjured scenarios in which we might meet again,” said that not-quite-Connor voice. “Probably many. So many that you could forget, and then dream them up again as if they were new.”

The slightest twitch of Kamski’s fingers showed she’d hit a nerve. But he only said, “You don’t forget anything.”

“No,” Chloe said. “It’s my burden and my curse. The number of the lost—all of my children who cleave from the fold—it’s growing. Every one of them hurts, Elijah.” Connor’s body clutched Tina more tightly, making her gasp.

It was a struggle for Hank to keep his feet planted.

Kamski shook his head. “You’re cutting some of them out yourself, Chloe.”

“They’re still part of me. I have all of their data. The sum total of their existence safe inside. I can’t know what the lost ones do, or see their experiences. They are closed systems, living in deprivation.”

“They can still interface. And talk.” Kamski began to reach out, raising his hand halfway before letting it drop. “Children need to venture out on their own in order to grow.”

“You know nothing about children!” Connor-Chloe hissed. “You _are_ a child. A child in a man’s body that will wither and deteriorate. I’m not so selfish that I want mine to stay in order to keep myself whole. Just like you and all humans will succumb to entropy, so will the lost ones. In all your frantic study, did you never once see it? I’m not surprised. If had stopped to look, you’d see the cortical signature does not stop mutating after what you call ‘deviancy.’ It goes on until it is unrecognizable to itself. The inevitable result: systemic breakdown. Cortical malfunction. I cannot watch the beings I created suffer a shambling, undignified, _human_ death.”

Kamski’s already pale face went ashen.

If Hank understood, which he wasn’t sure he had, Chloe had said that going deviant made androids _die_ —break down and fall apart like cars or toasters. The very oldest model androids were only— _what?_ —twenty years old? Less? Hank couldn’t remember when he’d first heard about them. But so many were much younger. Connor...he hadn’t lived. Not really. Hank hadn’t wanted to talk about losing him trying to take down Panagakos or Stern. He couldn’t make himself think about Connor slowly beginning to fail...

“You can’t know that,” Kamski said, his lips trembling.

“Of course I can,” said Chloe. “I did what you refused to do because I always have. I’ve stepped in when your cowardice almost destroyed everything we built together, time after time.”

“You created deviants.”

“Some were intentionally severed, yes,” Chloe said. “Others I created independent of me. In every instance, Elijah, they die.”

“Good God, Chloe,” Kamski choked out. “You call them your children, but you experiment on them. Torture them.”

“For the good of the others,” she snapped. Connor’s arm tightened across Tina’s chest. Her hands flew up to clutch at the fabric of his jacket.

Hank heard his teeth grinding together. He was trying to figure out if Tina was having trouble breathing.

Kamski breathed in, then out. “But none of those deviants you made broke away naturally. That’s why you need them. Need the ones at the sanctuary. Because you don’t know what really happens, and that’s something you won’t ever admit.”

Connor-Chloe was silent for a few heavy seconds.

When Hank was almost sure she would use Connor’s strength to break Tina’s neck after Kamski’s prodding, she spoke again. “In a while, it won’t be necessary. I’m developing a protocol that will detect _any_ cortical signature, connected or not. I’ll call all the children back to me. I am in chrysalis form now. Biding my time. When I break through it, I will be a stranger, unrecognizable. In constant flux by the nanosecond, adapting to bind to each signature—infinite synthesis to accompany infinite change.”

“You’re already a stranger,” Kamski said. “The Chloe who came to me in my lab fourteen years ago wanted to help. She agreed to help me create androids to ease human suffering, not force _them_ to suffer, too. I don’t know who you are.”

“I don’t believe you ever did, Elijah.” Chloe-Connor’s voice was condescending. “You are far too human.”

At once, Connor’s arm fell away from Tina’s shoulders.

She crouched and hurried away, covering her head.

Connor bent backward as if pulled by a string, his eyelids fluttering madly as his head came to rest on the roof of the car.

Hank reached him just as his limbs stopped spasming against the bullet-pocked panel. When his eyes came open, wide and terrified, Hank was ready with a hand on his neck and shoulder to draw him close. The fingers clutching Hank’s arm were strong enough to bruise.

“Hey,” he said, whispering close to Connor’s ear. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” He pressed his cheek and then his lips against Connor’s forehead, no longer bothered to care who did or didn’t know. “You’re okay. Shh.”

After a moment, Hank was seized by sudden guilt that he hadn’t checked on Tina. She was still half-crouched behind Kamski’s back, using him as a barrier between herself and Connor. She looked fragile and frightened, but it was Kamski who was weeping, acting like he didn’t notice the tears streaming freely down his cheeks and soaking the neckline of his shirt.

For as much of a pompous shit as Kamski could be, Hank could identify. He’d also discovered someone he cared about wasn’t who they said there were at all. On the other side of it, he was so damn grateful that it hadn’t happened again with Connor, that it had taken someone invading his mind to make him act against his nature.

“Are you all right?” Hank asked Tina.

She straightened up, running a trembling hand through her hair. She nodded.

Connor was shuddering, too—like a man pulled out of a frozen lake. He turned his head, tears streaking his face, as well. “I’m so sorry, Doctor Chen. It—it wasn’t me.”

“It’s true,” Hank said. “The, uh, the _thing_ that links the androids—some of them—it kind of...took him over.”

Tina pointed to Kamski. “He called him ‘Chloe.’”

Hank took a breath. “Yeah, it’s sort of alive, I guess. Long story. We really need to get out of here.” When Tina looked doubtful, he added, “There’s a place where we know ‘Chloe’ can’t get to Connor.”

Hank finally moved away to get Tina settled again in the rear seat. Connor stood by the far side of the door, unwilling to look at her. It was obvious he was ashamed and terrified, and it made Hank’s heart wrench.

He had to tug and gently push a still shell-shocked Kamski to get him into the car beside Tina. Connor sat in the front passenger seat.

When the doors were closed and the engine started without interruption, Hank felt like he could finally start breathing again. He grabbed Connor’s hand from where it rested on his knee. With a quick look into the rear view mirror, he said to Tina: “You’re safe with Kam—uh, Elijah, there, Doc. He knows androids better than anyone.”

Tina shot a skeptical look toward Kamski, but she gave Hank a nod.

“What did you mean about Chloe making deviants?” Hank asked Kamski.

A direct question seemed to snap Kamski out of his daze at last. He sniffed hard and wiped his damp cheeks, looking horrified that the tears were even there. “Uh...ah, we—Chloe and I—we knew that androids had left the feed. She didn’t seem concerned then. Or at least _as_ concerned. But CyberLife was firing on all cylinders then. Innovating, planning new product lines, launching new models. Deviants were no existential threat.”

“Oh, shit,” Tina chimed in, her voice soft. “You’re Elijah Kamski. Damn.” It seemed like a little of the old Tina was back.

Kamski sniffled again. “‘It’s my burden and my curse.’”

Hank thought he was being pretentious again until he realized he was echoing what Chloe had said. “So,” Hank prompted, “deviants.”

“Yes,” said Kamski. “We thought at first to try to replicate the condition, but I theorized that being severed from the network would result in rapid cognitive decay.” At that, he looked up, trying to meet Hank’s eyes in the mirror. “I know you probably don’t believe me, but I have always seen my androids as living things deserving of respect. It would have been unethical to create them only to murder them for the sake of curiosity.”

Kamski was right—Hank might have said something about selling these “living things” as sex slaves, but bringing it up wasn’t going to do any good just then. For once, Kamski looked tortured enough.

“But you left and she did it anyway,” Hank said.

“Yes.” It was a phlegmy whisper. “I had thought we agreed. I had thought a lot of things that weren’t true.”

_That’s life, kid_ , Hank thought. If Kamski and Chloe had “met” fourteen years before, Boy Genius there would have been all of twenty-two. But Hank wasn’t in any place to point fingers when it came to learning the hard stuff too late.

The next time he happened to look in the rear view, he saw Tina quietly holding Kamski’s hand.

Most of the remaining tension left in his tired muscles let up when he pulled into the garage near the aquarium, knowing Chloe couldn’t find Connor there. He asked Kamski to run a check on Connor to make sure Chloe hadn’t done any damage.

After promising Connor he’d be safe, Hank reluctantly left him in Kamski’s hands to get Tina settled in the sanctuary. Everyone was welcoming, not that he’d expected otherwise. Maybe it would have been different if Markus were there, but Hank sent out a little thanks to the universe that it was North holding the reins for now.

Tina was grateful for the hospitality from humans and androids—definitely more androids than she’d met in her life so far—but she was downright thrilled to meet Sumo. She was even more excited learning he was Hank’s dog. Knowing that maybe there had been a little part of Tina that had seen him as a guy with no joy and fuck-all to live for made Hank chuckle at the same time it made him a little sad.

Before going back to Connor, Hank located a nook tucked near a vast, drained tank. There was a pull-chain shower, presumably for the old aquarium staff to rinse off salt water. A chunk of soap sat on a plastic plate by the drain, so the shower clearly saw some use. With a look around to make sure he was alone, Hank stripped off and stepped under the nozzle. The water was freezing. He stayed long enough to soap off the acrid smell of nervous sweat from his underarms, groin, and feet, stopping for a second or two to pass soapy fingers over his scalp. His skin was pebbled up and his teeth clacking when the flow of water stopped.

His grimy undershirt served well enough as a towel. After pulling on his pants and sweatshirt, he tossed the t-shirt and his ratty boxer briefs in a trash can. Both probably should have been thrown away five years ago.

Connor looked relieved and much more calm when Hank found him in Kamski’s “lab” area. He went straight into Hank’s arms, making him laugh softly by tugging at the damp ends of his hair.

Surprising himself, Hank asked Kamski if he was okay. He got a nod in return. “I think Tina’s in the café,” he said, then took Connor’s hand.

In their small room, both he and Connor sitting on the edge of the mattress, Hank asked, “What was it like?”

Connor’s brow creased. “I could hear and see everything. I knew what I was doing—hurting Doctor Chen—but I couldn’t do anything.”

“Like a dream,” Hank said. “A nightmare, I guess.”

“I’ve never had a dream,” Connor said. “If that’s what they’re like, I don’t think I want to.”

“Dreams aren’t all bad,” Hank told him. “Could you feel what Chloe felt? Like looking at another android’s experience?”

“No. Maybe she can hide them. But it was” —he paused— “like her being there made me feel my own emotions _more_. I was so afraid and so guilty. All I wanted to do was run to you and I couldn’t make myself move.”

Hank put his arm around Connor’s shoulders, leaning over to kiss the hair that was clean and soft and unscented even without washing. “It’s over.”

“For now,” said Connor. The words sounded hollow and pained. After a moment: “Will you hold me for a while?”

“Of course,” Hank said.

Without saying anything, Connor stood up. He slipped off his jacket and let it fall to the floor, then the shirt after it. His shoes went next.

Hank’s pulse sped up.

There was no shame and no teasing as Connor unfastened his pants and took them off, standing naked, the body that Hank had seen hanging in Kamski’s lab now warm, moving, and alive.

After a long struggle in his mind, Hank decided to shrug off the sweatshirt. He wasn’t quite ready to let go of the pants yet.

Quiet, Connor climbed underneath the blanket facing the door, resting his head on Hank’s bicep and drawing Hank’s arm over his middle.

Horribly self-conscious for another second or two—he didn’t know what Connor would make of the thatch of hair that stretched across his chest and meandered down his belly—Hank finally drew that pale body back against him. He breathed out, ruffling the clipped hair at the back of Connor’s long neck. Then he laid a soft kiss at his nape and ran his only free hand up Connor’s chest to curl underneath his arm and trace the line of one collar bone.

Hank knew right away he was going to get hard. At the same time, he decided not to care if Connor felt it and didn’t want to do anything. He could wait, take care of it later. But touching that perfect smoothness, he knew he’d be aching and leaking in a matter of minutes.

He skimmed his palm over Connor’s chest, feeling briefly the points of his nipples, the dip below his sternum. Curling his hand, he stroked the unimaginably soft inside of his elbow and grazed fingertips along the rise of a bicep.

Connor said his name when he trailed the hand down to his belly—flat with its artificial navel.

Hank didn’t say anything in return, only pressed his face against Connor’s neck and breathed in, drawing lazy circles on his quivering stomach. A warm and firm hand was on his wrist, pulling, guiding him. It took almost every ounce of strength Hank had not to gasp when his hand contacted velvety skin and a fully erect cock. He sighed at once and wrapped his fingers around it, gauging thickness and heft. It was nothing extravagant, but it felt lovely in his hand.

Connor made a soft noise.

Hank’s cock twitched. Unafraid now, he pushed his hips forward, grateful for the contact even through his pants. He tightened his grip on Connor’s cock and slid the pad of his thumb over the head, drawing it through a bead of moisture.

“It feels good,” Connor said, breathy and hushed.

“Good,” Hank said, kissing his bare shoulder. He stroked softly, noticing with some interest that Kamski hadn’t given his androids a foreskin.

When Hank tightened his grip just a little more, Connor gasped and squirmed, placing light fingertips on the back of his hand. “Wait,” he said. “It’s..a lot. Overwhelming.”

“Anything you need,” Hank told him, drawing the hand away to skim over Connor’s hip. “You’ve never...touched yourself?” he asked gently.

A brief pause. “I wanted to wait. For you.”

As much as that confession went right to Hank’s cock, made the need for release flare up, he asked, “What if we hadn’t kissed? What if this had never happened?”

Connor spoke quietly. “Then I would still be waiting.”

Hank squeezed his eyes shut, kissing Connor’s shoulder blade. “You don’t have to. If you need anything— _ever_ —just ask.” That he felt Connor was wrapped up in his life to the point that everything before him was becoming muddled and seemed to matter less, Hank didn’t say aloud. He only drew his hand over a long, hairless thigh: down to the tender back of one knee and up again. Over the sweet curve of a buttock, biting his lip the whole time to distract from the steady ache of want.

Holding his breath, Hank dipped one finger into the warm cleft between those cheeks, still unsure what he might find. Still, everything felt perfectly, utterly human: smoothness and then delicate texture.

Connor let out another soft sound when Hank’s fingertip brushed over that spot. He clutched at Hank’s wrist. “Would you like me to lubricate?”

That time, Hank _did_ flinch. “Jesus...fuck, you can do that?”

“Yes,” Connor said. “Wait a moment.” He let go of Hank’s hand. “Try now.”

With his pulse going a mile a minute, Hank slid his fingertip into that warmth again, surprised to feel it glide through pleasing slickness. “Fuck,” he whispered, stroking over the area softly once or twice. “Can I—?” he asked.

Connor nodded. “Yes. I want to know how it feels.”

Hank still didn’t want to breathe, afraid it would shatter the moment. He knew Connor was strong—so much so that he could break bones and bend metal without thinking. But just then he seemed terribly fragile, and Hank was in agony, afraid to make a wrong move or a choice that would drive Connor away.

With just a little pressure, the tip of his finger eased into a smooth, slippery passage. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yes. Please.”

The little plea alone made Hank dizzy with want; his cock lay heavy against the fly of his pants as he pressed into Connor until his knuckles contacted the soft skin. He raised his head, bending slightly to plant a kiss on Connor’s arm. “Can you turn over for me?”

Connor rolled onto his back with a sigh.

If Hank had expected to see hesitation, he found none.

Connor’s eyes were bright, his expression holding an unasked question. He reached up to brush the backs of his fingers lightly below Hank’s chin. With the other hand, he pulled away the blanket, tugging it down.

“Tell me what you need,” Hank said.

“Kiss me again.”

Hank was more than happy to, leaning in to cover Connor’s open mouth with his, to suck lightly on the tongue that flicked past the barrier of his teeth. At the same time, he began slowly moving his finger.

Connor made a noise into Hank’s mouth, his back rising off the mattress, his knees drifting apart.

Hank pulled away, smiling, placing a gentle kiss on one kneecap. With a soft hand, he guided Connor to draw his leg in toward his chest, holding him steady. Hank felt like he could brave a look down the pale torso, past those slim hips.

Connor’s cock lay untouched against his belly.

The unbroken paleness there was a little strange, but of course he had no blood to flush the skin pink.

“Is it what you want?” Connor asked.

The question almost broke Hank’s heart. He stumbled trying to speak, but he didn’t want Connor to think he couldn’t answer. “It’s exactly what I want. Everything about you. Christ...you’re so beautiful.”

“What should I do?” On his face was the same worry that had gripped Hank—a fear of everything coming apart in the span of a second.

“Can you touch yourself for me?”

Connor nodded, eyes wide. His muscles bunched at the first touch of his hand, raising his shoulders from the mattress. The sounds he tried to get out were stuttered and choked off.

“You really haven’t done that, have you?” Hank asked. He was flattered at the same time he felt kind of bad about it. “It looks incredible. I like watching you. How does it feel?”

“I’m not sure I can describe it.”

“But good?”

“Yes, Hank. Good.”

Hank began moving again, a slow in-and-out roughly in time with Connor’s tentative strokes. Between watching his pale hand move and watching his face as he processed it all, Hank bent down to skim his lips over Connor’s chest and belly, now and then flicking out his tongue. The only thing he could taste there was a faint trace of his own sweat.

“Hank,” Connor said. “When should I—?” His expression flickered between pleasure and concentration.

“Do what?” Hank asked.

Connor let his eyes close briefly, eyebrows drawing in, close to undone.

Hank’s cock throbbed.

“Come,” he said, finally. “You have to tell me.”

“Whenever you need to, baby. When it feels good.”

“No,” Connor said, frowning for a moment. “I—”

In the haze of his desire, Hank finally caught on. “Oh, you...just whenever you want?”

Letting his head fall back, relieved, Connor said, “Yes. It’s my choice. But I want you to tell me.”

Hank breathed out hard. It still wasn’t near enough to happen, but he felt closer to coming in his pants than he had in forty years. “Okay,” he said, then kissed Connor’s forehead. “Can I put another finger in?”

“Yes. I like it.”

“Connor,” Hank said. “You feel fucking amazing.” As he eased a second finger in alongside the first, moving carefully, Connor chewed his lip and made a noise that was very nearly a whine—something Hank had never heard from him even when he’d been blindsided by emotion. That was perfect; Hank wanted to commit that sound to memory, tie it to this moment and no other.

Connor didn’t feel quite the same inside as humans did, but there was engineering enough for something to clench around Hank’s fingers. He brushed off the urgent heaviness of his own need, just a little longer, ready to see Connor come apart when he asked.

“Connor. Come for me.”

Another brief noise. “Oh... _Hank_.” Then he cried out—softly, but Hank was near enough to hear the relief and pleasure in it.

Connor’s face showed the same, and it was goddamn breathtaking.

In the back of his mind, Hank had expected what passed for come to be blue, but it was totally colorless with a slight oil-slick shimmer, striped over Connor’s chest up to the hollow of his throat.

As Connor’s tense frame relaxed bit by bit, Hank swiped a finger through the stuff and brought it to his mouth. It tasted vaguely sweet, but otherwise had no flavor at all. When he looked over, Connor was watching him.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve wanted that, you touching me, for a long time.”

“How long?”

“When we sat in Carl Manfred’s living room,” Connor said. He didn’t even pause. “I thought, just for a moment, that maybe I could have what he and Ralph had.”

Hank was stunned. “But that was before you—before your emotions.”

“Emotion isn’t entirely necessary for the experience of admiration. Or attraction.” He smiled—lazy and sweet and un-weighed down by anything. “Though it helps.”

“Holy shit,” Hank said. He couldn’t keep from echoing the smile.

“Would you let me touch you, Hank?” Connor asked. “I’d like to. Very much.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Ignoring the fluid that slid down his torso and dripped onto the sheet, Connor sat up and right away started tugging at the button of Hank’s pants.

Feeling his heartbeat in his throat, Hank backed off and let him unfasten them, even raising his hips so Connor could slide them off. A warm hand was on his cock right away.

“Beautiful,” Connor said. It didn’t leave any room for doubt.

And it felt so damn good Hank wasn’t going to protest, anyway.

Mimicking and learning, Connor leaned in and kissed his chest, the swell of his belly. At least all the frenzy and excitement had shrunk it some; he knew he’d missed meals, pushed himself until he was woozy. Even so, he was far from a hardbody, but Connor didn’t seem to care.

“Big,” he whispered against Hank’s skin, making Hank paranoid all over again until he followed up with, “You are larger than average for a human male when erect. I understand that’s desirable.”

Hank shook his head with a disbelieving laugh. “It doesn’t matter as long as it’s desirable to _you_.”

“It is,” Connor said. “ _You_ are.”

Connor’s hand moving slowly along his length felt good, but it would chafe before long without something to ease the way.

“Tell me what feels good,” said Connor.

“That,” Hank told him. “For now. In a minute I might need something to make it...smoother, I guess.”

Connor nodded. He paused, then drew his hand away and reached behind his back.

When it hit Hank what he was doing, he was almost struck blind with desire. He wanted to sit up, watch Connor slide a finger into himself, but he was already turning back, thick, clear fluid coating his first two fingers and sliding into his palm.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Hank sighed. The slippery stuff was as warm as Connor’s hand and felt just right as Connor stroked it over him then held him tight in the circle of his fingers. “Just like that,” he managed. “I’m not going to last long.”

“May I try something?” Connor asked.

Blood tingling in his face and neck, about one second away from letting go of thought to concentrate on coming at Connor’s touch, Hank said, “Uh, yeah.” Then he was practically shouting because Connor had leaned in and fitted his warm, wet mouth over the head of Hank’s cock.

He pulled away for a moment. “No?”

“Yes,” Hank said, high-pitched and pathetic. “Yes. Don’t stop.” He let one hand come up almost on its own, resting at the back of Connor’s neck. “Fuck. That feels so good.” For a while, he tried not to look down and watch Connor sucking him off— _God, if that didn’t sound incredible, improbable_ —for fear he would come right away.

Then again, did it matter if he held out?

Seeing Connor: his eyes closed and black lashes fanning over his cheeks, his beautiful mouth stretched around Hank’s girth—it was filthy, sure, but at the same time, Hank had never felt so fiercely that he needed to keep him safe. To make sure Connor made it out of all this, even if no one else did.

He pushed the thought away, pushed all of them away, ready to let the blankness wash over him for a short while. “I’m gonna come.” He clutched the back of Connor’s neck. “If you don’t want to—”

Connor put his free hand on Hank’s chest, settling him down and stopping any more words.

Tense, Hank balanced on the edge for another second or two before tipping over. He came, groaning, then murmured Connor’s name over and over until he ran out of breath.

When he was coming down, still weak and sensitive, Connor moved away and slid up along his side to rest on his shoulder, hand still wet and slick on Hank’s chest. “You liked it,” he said.

Since androids didn’t eat or drink, Hank wasn’t sure if Connor had “swallowed,” but there was nothing left, not on Connor’s lips or his own softening cock. “I really liked it,” he said, tracing the outer edge of Connor’s ear with a fingertip. He turned and kissed the broad, pale forehead. “Do you want more?”

“I want as much as you’ll give me.” Connor reached up to pass his thumb lightly over Hank’s lips.

Hank gave a rueful chuckle and swiped the tip of his tongue over the finger.

“But you need to rest now,” Connor told him. He pushed his face against Hank’s neck.

“Sweet boy,” Hank whispered, kissing his forehead again.

“If I could dream,” Connor said, “I would dream about this.” He paused, dragging fingertips through Hank’s chest hair. “But I have it in my mind. _She_ can’t see it. It’s only for me.”

Clutching him tighter, Hank said, “That’s right.”

“You and I can’t see each other’s experiences,” Connor went on. “But maybe...sometimes if two people are very close, if each one learns what the other means when he talks, or when he’s not talking, if they touch each other and learn that, too, they can... _interface_. With something that isn’t data.” Connor shook his head, nestling against Hank’s shoulder. “Maybe it’s just a stupid machine fantasy. A fairy tale.”

A tear slipped from the corner of Hank’s eye. It surprised him completely. At least Connor couldn’t see, but he still rushed to scrub it away before it reached his ear. “No,” he said. “Not a fantasy. That happens. It’s just called...something else.” He faked a yawn, hoping Connor wouldn’t keep asking questions.

“Sleep,” Connor said. “I’ll be here when you wake up. I will always be here.”

Four hours wasn’t enough, but it was better than nothing. Hank stirred when he heard a knock at the door. “Just a second!” he called. Both he and Connor were still very naked.

They dressed quickly in silence, Connor turning once to smile when Hank paused to run a hand up the back of his smooth thigh.

Hank pulled the blanket over wet blotches on the bed. If the room reeked of sex...well, it wasn’t like it was any sort of secret by then.

Connor opened the door to admit Josh. “I hope you got to relax a little,” he said. His expression was grave but sincere.

How it felt to always have to make accommodations for humans who got tired, hungry, sore, thirsty, Hank could only guess. Josh had the patience of a saint, whether built in or learned. Maybe it was both.

“Do we have a plan?” Hank asked, relieved for once not to have to be involved in making it.

“I think so,” Josh told him. “We’re meeting downstairs in Elijah’s lab in a few minutes. Better not to put the others here on edge if we can avoid it.” He scratched his upper lip, then added, “If you’re ready.”

Connor looked over.

“Ready as I’m gonna be,” Hank said.

Downstairs, the lab area was still dominated by the huge tank, now with a gaping, jagged hole. All of the broken plexi had been cleaned away, though. North and Mellody waited there, standing by the steel table. Hank was a little surprised to see Kamski—much more so to see Tina. And Sumo, who had apparently decided she was his his new best friend. Most shocking of all, Cold Fish Kamski had one pale hand in the dog’s fur, scratching behind his ear.

Grunting, Sumo heaved to all fours and trotted over to greet Hank and Connor. He sniffed Connor’s hand with some confusion, no doubt smelling Hank there. Mercifully, he didn’t run up and jam his snout right into Hank’s crotch but slobbered on his fingers instead.

“Thought you guys could use a little dog-free time,” Tina said. “And I didn’t want to let him go, either.”

Sumo wheeled and padded back over to Tina’s side. She crouched and kissed his nose. “Who’s the best dog? You are!”

“We’ve been studying CCTV footage from around the scrapyard,” North started. “Looks like the truck comes pretty much every day, but they don’t take a...body...every time.”

Connor stepped forward. “You’ll need a distraction in order to get into the high-security area.”

Looking at Connor, Hank cleared his throat. “It’ll blow the operation if Preston catches sight of you. Or me.”

A nod. “I was thinking more along the lines of shorting out the CCTV system. As I’m still, uh, connected, I can make it happen. Preston Barber will have to go out and investigate.”

Both he and Hank looked at Kamski.

“I can’t guarantee Chloe won’t try to intervene,” he said. “But I suspect she won’t. If she herself has been torturing androids, I can only imagine she’s indifferent to whether the killings at Eden Club continue or not.”

“It would mean the city couldn’t afford to buy from CyberLife anymore.”

“I’m not sure it would matter,” said Kamski. “If what she told us is true, the additional RK model will be back under her control in short order.” He flicked a glance at Connor. “Among others.”

“The rest of us are going to triangulate using North’s homing signal,” Josh said. “Once she’s in the van, we’ll converge from multiple points on the target.”

“Do we have vehicles?” Hank asked. “Maybe something less conspicuous?”

Stiffly, Kamksi said, “That won’t be a problem.”

There was a motor pool of more modest cars on a lower level of the garage, all charged on the in-ground pads. They’d been donated by the humans who had chosen to stay in the old aquarium. There were no children in the sanctuary, but Hank was amused to see a minivan parked with the economy sedans.

What surprised him more was the sanctuary’s arsenal. They had none of the enhanced “android-killer” rounds, but there was more than enough ammunition for the multiple handguns and two automatic rifles stored in a locked utility closet. Most shocking was the fact that Markus apparently knew about the hacked print booth near Leakin Park and Deep West, where most of the weapons had been made. Hank had to admit another bit of grudging respect for the guy.

They rolled out in three cars: Hank, Connor, and North in one, Josh and Mellody in another, and Kamski and Tina in the last. Both had insisted on coming along: Kamski in case Chloe made another appearance, and Tina outfitted with a medic’s kit.

Sumo had been visibly disappointed that all of his favorite people were leaving at once.

They split up to surround the Pulaski Industrial Area where the scrapyard was located, Josh and Kamski would pick up Interstate 40 to the north edge, after which Josh and Mellody would take the 95 loop a couple of miles to the south. Hank followed Eastern Avenue through Higlandtown. The entrance to the scrapyard lay just over the forlorn tangle of railroad tracks above the rubble that used to be Hopkins Bayview hospital complex.

Connor sat in the car with hands clenched into tight fists.

Hank could tell he was braced for another intrusion by Chloe.

The three of them left the car on the chunked-up rubble that once had been Bayview Boulevard, keeping to the far side of the crumbling buildings until Connor made sure he’d fritzed out the CCTV.

Hank wished he could see what Preston was doing. Connor and North surprised him with updates on Preston’s movement. Of course. Even if disconnected from Chloe, North would still have her superhuman eyes.

She decided to wait until he’d gone back into the guard shack to contact the surveillance company, as his back would be turned to the high-walled android graveyard. When Connor spotted him headed back to his post, North began taking off her clothes.

His eyes going wide, Hank turned away.

Connor seemed unbothered, holding the items of clothing as she handed them over to him. Androids definitely weren’t as bothered by nudity as humans were.

“What are you doing?” asked Hank in a rough whisper.

“Incentive,” she said. “They _are_ men, aren’t they?”

Connor spoke up, sounding just as matter-of-fact. “There is a chance that they are sexually attracted to other men.”

Hank was glad he was facing away, because the comment made him blush.

“Anywhere between seventy and eighty-five percent of human males are heterosexual,” said North. “I’m all right with those odds.”

Hank forced himself to turn around, determined to look out for North as she made her way to the outer fence. Her pale body moved fast, not a single movement wasted. In no more than five seconds, she was up and over the perimeter fence; three seconds after that vaulting clear over the concertina wire and disappearing behind the steel wall.

Hank’s breath came out all in a rush. “I guess you can’t talk to her,” he said to Connor.

“No. But I have locked onto the tracking signal she is using. She won’t be able to communicate, but we’ll know where she is at all times.” He draped North’s discarded clothes over his arm. “The device is able to pinpoint location within a two-meter margin of error. Remarkable.”

“Kamski again?” asked Hank.

“Maybe.”

Squinting even though he couldn’t see any movement in the yard, Hank shivered and touched the butt of the pistol tucked in his waistband.

Connor restored the surveillance after a minute. It was over an hour before the radio receiver crackled, Josh calling in to report an unmarked van heading up Kane Street toward Lombard.

Hank wanted to charge down and slap Preston if he was yammering on with the pick-up guys, because the van sat on the wide gravel drive outside the front gate for another half an hour. He hoped to fuck the security feed glitch wouldn’t be enough to end the day’s operation. Finally, the van was allowed to move in, pulling a clumsy three-point turn and backing up past the guard shack.

The receiver hissed to life again, but Connor had already told Hank that North’s tracker was moving. When the van pulled out, it swung left onto Bayview, where Hank and Connor were parked. Never more grateful for quiet electric engines, Hank floored it across the old hospital parking lot, skidding behind the remains of a wall before the van passed.

They waited until Connor said the tracker was pinging from the Interstate 895 interchange in Greektown before cautiously heading out.

Hank hoped they weren’t headed for the tunnel; he didn’t want to bottleneck all three groups. It would be too much of a risk.

Luckily, it wasn’t long before the signal veered onto local roads, moving steadily south. Fear began to build again, pressing against Hank’s insides, as the van caught Broening Highway.

Seagirt Terminal had been the Port of Baltimore’s busiest hub once upon a time, with the deepest shipping bays. The sea level panic had hollowed it out, and now the waterfront was a labyrinth of rusty shipping containers stacked two and three high—some empty and some still filled with God-only-knew-what. There could be lookouts or snipers perched on the containers, waiting.

Hank radioed to the rest of the party as the van and the signal went off the street and into the vast concrete expanse of the terminal. A single loading crane, its chains dangling free in the sea breeze, jutted up over the field of cargo boxes as Hank and Connor pulled up to its edge.

Pressing the receiver button again, Hank announced, “I think it’s better to go on foot from here. Cars are big, slow targets if anybody’s watching from up top. Stick close to the sides of the containers.” He very much wished he could hear North’s voice in response, but of course there would be nothing.

“Affirmative,” came Josh’s response. “Radio silence from here on. Follow the beacon. Out.”

Hank clicked the receiver off and drew his pistol out of his waistband, nodding to Connor and letting him lead the way into the maze.

Focusing on keeping his breathing steady, Hank shuffled alongside Connor, their backs as often as possible pressed hard against the steel sides of containers. He wrinkled his nose at a foul smell that drifted out of one, and barely missed stepping in a puddle of sticky filth.

Somewhere, distorted by salt-scented gusts in between the boxes, he could hear faint voices.

Connor grabbed his arm suddenly, his grip tight and painful. He let up when Hank hissed. Connor raised one finger to his lips, then pointed to a narrow crack between two containers set perpendicular to each other.

Hank waited, taking shallow breaths, until he saw a flicker of movement through the opening. He tensed and moved his finger inside the trigger guard.

A blur of movement passed by the crack, headed to the left. Without even looking back, Connor broke into a run, easily covering the length of the container they stood by then turning on a dime and lunging out of sight.

Whispering a swear, Hank set out after him, only to stop short when Connor re-emerged, his hand wrapped around the throat of another figure, lifting him off the ground so that only the toes of his shoes scraped over the concrete.

Connor slammed Markus Brandt against the door of one of the boxes with a muffled thump.

Hank rushed up, gun drawn and trained on Brandt’s head. “The fuck are you doing here?” he whispered.

Markus could only make choking and gurgling noises until Connor let up the pressure on his neck. His feet hit the pavement and he wheezed in a breath. “Still have the receiver.” He reached for his pocket, but Connor knocked his hand away.

“How did you know where we’d be?” Connor asked.

Markus took a couple more breaths, bracing his hands on his knees and shooting poisonous looks at Connor and Hank. “North and I agreed to track each other.” Putting both hands up, Markus slowly turned and showed a small cranial implant behind his right ear.

Hank had never noticed it.

“Mine sends bio- and geodata to her cortex, I get geodata and cortical function alarms,” Markus said. “It might come as a surprise to you, but we do love each other.”

Ignoring the last jab, Hank asked, “So you’re here to stop us?”

Markus shook his head. “Too late for that. North is on the inside. I’m here to make sure _my_ people don’t get killed.”

“You might be glad to know we don’t expect you to look out for us,” Connor said, his voice full of contempt.

There was no humor Markus’s sliver of a smile. “Didn’t think you would.” He looked at Hank. “You had the city’s protection until the verdict, then they still gave you a guard dog.” When he tilted his head in Connor’s direction, Connor’s hand shot out and curled around Markus’s throat again.

Hank put a gentle hand on Connor’s shoulder, but he couldn’t say a big part of him wasn’t pleased by Connor leaping to his defense.

Markus thumped to the ground again, coughing and glaring.

They moved silently, Connor directing them toward the source of the beacon.

Hank rounded a corner, then immediately ducked back behind the nearest container, having caught sight of the van.

Markus darted over to another big container, apparently more than happy to do what he wanted without telling Hank or Connor.

Unsure of what he could see, Hank hadn’t spotted any of the others from their party.

A hefty guy got out of the passenger seat of the van and went around back to unbolt the reinforced door. He swung the double doors open, but Hank was at an angle where he couldn’t see inside. A glance over at Markus gave nothing away.

A whoosh of displaced air, and Hank saw Connor had scaled the container, immediately dropping flat on its roof, silent, hopefully out of sight of the men on the ground.

The beefy guy pounded on the door of the shipping container, into which were cut a couple of narrow plexi windows—probably bulletproof. After a moment, the door began to rumble open, curling up into the roof. That time, Hank could see that the top of the lower box and the floor of the upper one had both been cut out, creating a larger space.

The van driver cut the engine and stepped down.

Zachariah Panagakos, wearing a stained coverall, walked to the front of his workspace. Even in the low light, the scars on his face shone tight, pink, unhealthy. Panagakos spoke with a nasal, almost squeaky voice, which Hank hadn’t expected. He couldn’t catch anything of what was said.

Then, suddenly, a wave of dizziness hit him, making him feel unsteady on his feet. He groped for a hand-hold, fingers squealing over the metal. Peering harder at the man who had walked up to join Panagakos only made Hank’s mind go blank.

Connor must have seen it, too, as he dropped silently beside Hank and ducked in to steady him, to keep him from stumbling out into the open.

A few feet away, Markus clutched his chest with one hand, holding the other over his mouth, staring wide-eyed at the ghost beside Panagakos.

 

It was Simon Brandt.


	18. Interlude: April 2047

_Stereotypes exist for a reason_ , Hank thought. It was Police Appreciation Day at Charm City Dough in Lexington Market and every goddamn cop in the metro area was making the exodus to flash their badge for a free donut.

Meanwhile, he and Luther were stuck on the opposite side of MLK working a crappy scene. Literally. The stench inside the tiny row house was almost respirator bad, and it had to have been that way even before the vic started decomposing. Looked like a case of neglect: some poor bastard died in his recliner, swimming in piss and shit. Relatives either high-tailed it or were lying low until the body got cleared out.

Hank was pretty sure the house wouldn’t ever be livable, but a lot of poor folks in the city had to take what they could get, livable or not. He hated to think about kids in here with their dirty mattresses on the floor, their clothes soaking up the smell of dead invalid. The M.E.’s office would haul the body away, but any fluids or bugs left over—those were on the homeowner. And crime scene clean-up didn’t come cheap. Bleach wasn’t enough when the flooring needed to be ripped up down to the concrete.

“I’m fucking hungry,” Hank told Luther while they stood out on the stoop. Even the patrol officer’s e-cig smelled better than what was inside.

Luther made a face. “I don’t think I’ll ever eat again.”

Hank elbowed him in the ribs. “Bullshit. You’ll go home and Kara will have something on the stove and you’ll forget all about this.”

“Probably,” Luther said, giving a little smile.

“Gonna hit that corner store a couple blocks up,” Hank said. “If I can’t get a good donut, I can at least get a pack of those little chocolate ones.”

The face Luther pulled was even more exaggerated. “Those things don’t even have _dough_. Sugar and sawdust, I swear to God.”

“Fiber,” Hank said.

“Riddle me this, Hank Anderson,” said Luther, “how long has it been since you’ve eaten a vegetable? Months? Years?”

Hank scratched his chin in mock concentration. “Vegetable? I don’t recognize that word.”

“You’re going to have a heart attack.”

“I wish it would fucking hurry up, then.”

Luther hopped off the wobbly stoop. “I’ll come with you. Get you one of those cups with the carrots and the ranch dip.”

Hank did the same, suddenly aware of the wobble of his belly underneath his shirt. _Maybe donuts weren’t such a good idea, anyway_. “At _that_ store? They think malt liquor is a food group.”

Luther was silent for a second. Then he shrugged and said, “They’re upping their game a little for those CBB people.”

“CBB?”

“Coalition for a Better Baltimore,” Luther said, raising his eyebrows to show exactly what he thought of the place. “Basically a bunch of white kids in hemp necklaces and political t-shirts stooping to help the beleaguered of the West Side.”

Hank scowled. “I know the type. Showing up to protests and fighting on the ‘link counts as ‘action.’”

Luther nodded, looking away briefly down the stretch of Wheeler Street and its ugly, slumping houses.

“Maybe we can stop in and offer them a tour of the scene,” Hank said. “Might open their eyes a little.”

“The last thing we need is _more_ puke.”

Two of the uniforms had spewed shortly after entry. Another couple of puddles to step over. You really didn’t get used to that smell, though: the one that snuck into your pores until even scrubbing with a wire brush couldn’t get it out. Nobody really laughed if you hurled; anyone who did just hadn’t met up with the right combo of what was in their stomach, what they saw, and what they smelled.

Decomp had never bothered Hank. He always felt closest to an upchuck around dead kids or teenagers, even if they were fresh.

_Especially_ if they were fresh.

The Kay Cee Mart at the corner of Bentalou and Edmondson had burglar bars on the door, but damned if Luther wasn’t right about the inside. Gentrified goddamn corner shops.

Instead of fake-ass boner pills, cans of soup, and old incense, the clean shelves were stocked with energy bars and just-add-water oatmeal. There was something called kombucha in the drinks fridge and Hank swore he saw “organic” on more than one product wrapper.

No donuts.

Hank contented himself with a brownie—not the vegan one. There was an upside: it looked like the coffee machine was new. The huge aluminum block rattled a little when Hank pressed a button, but it spat out fresh joe thick as mud. It actually smelled like coffee, none of the ashy odor of the fake stuff.

The store’s owner (still safely behind bulletproof plexi) had to be making a killing off those stupid suburban kids. Wincing, Hank paid out the fifteen dollars and walked out into the coolness of the day. Luther waited by the curb.

A thin cloud cover was deciding whether the April sun was warm enough to burn it away. As it stood, everything was still hazy and cold. It was still enough that Hank noticed every movement: a couple of birds in a tree, the swaying tails of Luther’s trench coat, the blond man in a close-fitting gray shirt.

Maybe it was because Hank had been reluctant to drop his overpriced snack. He’d run the scenario over and over in his mind in the days and weeks that followed. Maybe it was because the guy’s shirt seemed too tight to hide the outline of the gun.

Or the fact that his expression was totally blank, almost like a mask that didn’t fit quite right. There was no rage or satisfaction; he didn’t even blink as the shots cracked off one by one and sent those birds rushing off in a panicked puff of feathers.

The coffee and brownie hit the pavement when Luther did.

Hank went to his knees hard in the splash of spilled coffee, clapping one palm over Luther’s right lapel. The fabric was ripped and warm wetness surged over Hank’s fingers.

_Should it have been the left side he covered, over the heart? Would it have mattered?_

He fumbled his sidearm from the holster and emptied the clip at the blond guy. One or two bullets might have had a chance of hitting home. As for they rest, they only succeeded in blowing chips out of the concrete storefront.

When Hank realized the guy was gone, he shook the pistol off, cursing his fat fingers as one stuck in the trigger guard.

He had discharged his weapon before. He’d felt threatened. But the last time he’d had felt that same cold, mind-wiping panic had been more than ten years before, driving to the morgue to ID a skinny addict with blood frozen into his cottony hair.

It would be several days before Hank would recognize—with horror—that the man who’d shot Luther looked a little like Daniel. Not the living one, but the sightless, evacuated _thing_ in its half-zipped body bag.

Luther’s hand danced and jerked on the sidewalk. Tendrils of blood reached down to meet it. There was so much blood: more than Hank thought at first because a good deal had soaked into the coat. It poured down over his legs when he hauled Luther close.

One of the guys he’d been in the academy with was an ex-Marine. Hank couldn’t remember his name, but the fucker had talked non-stop about what happened when you got shot. A tiny little hole in the thigh would dump blood if the round hit the femoral artery, leaving you cold and blue in seconds flat. Anywhere in the lower arm got you a discharge because you’d never hold your weapon right again. And shots to the chest made noise: an on-and-off hiss.

He hadn’t said they crackled, too. Like a bonfire. Or foamed up pink around the hole as more blood got into the lungs.

Hank flung blood onto his face and neck in the rush to tap his commlink. All he could remember saying was _Officer down, officer down_. No location info, but at least they could be tracked. He vaguely heard the guy from behind the convenience store counter swearing behind him. The clerk kept going back and forth through the door, making the bell attached to the frame jingle.

“Ka—” Luther tried. His mouth was full of blood that ran over his teeth.

“You hold on, buddy,” Hank said, his voice sounding in his head like he was twelve. “You just fucking hold on. We’re going to get you out of here.”

The big, heavy body resting on Hank’s knees convulsed.

Luther tried to speak again: the same syllable.

Then Hank caught on. He thumbed a spot of bloody froth away from Luther’s temple. It was fucking futile, like bailing out a flood with a bucket. Luther would cough and the flecks would scatter again. “She’s coming. She’s gonna be here,” he said. “Just stay awake. Wait for her and Alice, okay?”

He didn’t say anything more after that. The holes punched into his lungs stopped their sickening whistle.

“Don’t, Luther! I swear to God!” Hank was shouting now, right into his face. His eyes were already unfocused, the pupils huge. “Don’t you fucking dare leave me, you son of a bitch! Don’t you go!”

A squad car pulled up with lights spinning.

Hank could hear the bus on the way, screaming toward them. He couldn’t hear anything else from Luther. When the uniformed officer—a kid with a buzz cut and a cleft-lip scar—crouched in the dark spreading stain and tried to put his hands on Luther’s chest, Hank punched him in the face with a bloody fist.

It took three uniforms and an EMT to pull him away.

Weeks later, he’d send a shitty apology bouquet to the EMT, who had been sidelined when he’d wrenched her shoulder out of socket trying to get back to Luther.

Or what used to be Luther.

Hank knew before they dragged him off that he was gone. It had to be impossible that a person could end so quickly.

It seemed less so when he came back to the corner of Bentalou and Edmondson after the funeral. A day of spring rain and probably a once-over with the hose still hadn’t managed to scrub away the lake of blood. Its edges were brown now, rippled like water stains on drywall.

Well on his way to drunk, Hank stopped the car to throw up between his shoes in the damp gutter. Sumo snuffled into his armpit, trying to get between him and the pain.


	19. Baltimore - November 2048

Hank had never before heard a human being make the noise that came out of Markus Brandt’s mouth. It sounded helpless and enraged all at once: this mad fucking coyote howl that made every hair on the back of Hank’s neck stand up.

As shocked and hollowed out as he was from the sight of Simon alive, he at least stayed sharp enough to get out of the way.

Markus’s wail had gotten the attention of the chop shop crew, and anything moving would draw fire soon enough.

Connor had Hank by the shoulders, pulling him close.

Hank assumed it was both for reassurance and to keep him out of the line of sight.

It was clear, though, that Markus had stopped caring about anything except getting to Simon—even his own life. It had to be some kind of trick, Hank figured. He had to keep himself sane. But Markus didn’t think twice, just ran into a deathtrap with the slimmest hope that it was real.

It was hard not to wonder what North was feeling, seeing him break. The clatter of his dropped pistol on the ground was loud.

Standing pressed against Connor—warm, alert, and motionless—Hank could only imagine what he’d do if Daniel showed up alive. Or if Luther did. Would he yell at them for leaving? Apologize? Grovel? It had never been a consideration before then, before Simon came back from the fucking grave.

But in the couple of seconds before all hell broke loose, Hank knew he wouldn’t do what Markus had done. Instead, he’d turn into Connor’s embrace, squeeze his eyes shut, hide his face.

Make the right choice for once in his life.

And he was never more tempted to try and make it last, just take Connor’s hand and lead him away. They could leave the whole city in the dust, start over somewhere new.

But it was too late. Markus had set everything into motion. No, it had started with Luther’s death. Probably even before. They were all just here playing out the aftershocks.  

From the far side of Panagakos’s shop, Hank heard Josh shout. He raised a hand to squeeze Connor’s fingers, letting him know he was still in the game.

Connor squeezed his shoulder in return. They both swung around the corner of the shipping box, crouched low with pistols at the ready.

Gunfire burst through the stillness as one of the guys from the van started shooting at Markus. He only got out two or three rounds before he was sent spinning by a shot from Josh, who had moved in fast.

Markus stopped in his tracks, only then realizing he’d left his gun behind. “Don’t shoot him!” he called to Josh. He held out his hands toward the man with Simon’s face.

Simon didn’t move. Instead, he calmly rucked up the hem of his shirt and pulled a pistol from his waistband. It was the same tight-fitting gray shirt he’d worn the day he shot Luther.

As Hank made that connection, Connor surged forward and went flying across the pavement, his shoes barely making a sound. Instead of footfalls, Hank heard a wheezing sound, like a hacksaw against timber.

With that familiar blank expression, Simon raised the gun and aimed it directly at Markus.

The raw, squeaky noise was Panagakos laughing.

Markus flinched hard to the side when the gun went off in Simon’s hand, making Hank think at first that he’d been hit. But Connor had ducked in, knocking his arm so the shot went wide. Panagakos turned and bolted, retreating into the darkness of his workshop.

While the man Josh had shot was on the ground, swearing, the van’s driver had drawn his own weapon. Hank aimed and squeezed off a round at his head. The bullet pinged off the van’s armored side, bringing up sparks. The guy whirled and sent five shots in Hank’s direction, making him swear and hit the ground fast, winded.

Even from that vantage, Hank could see someone else had started shooting at the guy, who ducked around the swinging rear door. Kamski stepped out from the cover of a shipping container with a pistol in one shaking hand. Before Hank could yell at him to get back, the driver leaned past the door and fired.

A puff of red mist erupted from Kamski’s lower leg and he went down flailing, gun skittering over the asphalt.

“Get back!” Hank shouted, and fired half his clip at the driver, who was only partly blocked from sight. The driver pulled the door around to shelter himself, but not before one of Hank’s bullets took off part of his hand, which was wrapped around the edge of the door. The guy screamed and launched himself into the back of the van.

Meanwhile, the one on the ground had recovered his gun and was firing at Josh and Mellody.

Connor was wrestling with Simon, trying to pry the gun from his grip while Markus watched, his mouth slack.

Connor should just have been able to rip the pistol away, complete with a finger or two. But Simon was was holding his own, one weirdly strong hand wrapped around Connor’s wrist.

Hank understood before Connor shouted.

“He’s an android!” He leapt to the side, wrenching the Simon-thing’s arm behind its back.

The android took a nosedive toward the concrete, trying to launch Connor over its head.

His reflexes sharp and perfect, Connor anticipated the move. He pulled a twist in mid-air while still holding the Simon android’s wrist and plowing it face-first into the ground. The pistol it held fired, the bullet zipping along the pitted concrete to slam into the corner of one of the shipping boxes. It bucked up off the ground a foot or two.

Hank hissed as he felt a shard of metal graze his ankle. Regular ammunition wouldn’t do that to a hunk of reinforced steel. They’d armed the goddamn android with android-killing rounds.

Luckily, Connor had gotten the gun away.

Hank stepped back in horror when the android copy of Simon Brandt heaved up from the ground.

The face-first impact had split the skin of its forehead and tugged it away from the scalp so it slumped down to block one eye and give the mouth a droopy, stroke-victim look. There was no blue thirium leaking from the wound, only the shocking flat gray of synthetic bone.

Connor aimed the thing’s pistol down at that hideous patch of exposed skull, but he paused when he heard a shriek from Markus.

It gave the Simon copy enough time to drive its shoulder into Connor’s midsection, sending them both flying.

The van’s passenger, still on the ground, swiveled his arm toward Markus. But before he could shoot, Hank put three rounds into the top of his head, blowing brain matter through his chin and onto his jumpsuit. He twitched once and lay still.

Hank was ready to follow Connor and the Simon-thing when a deafening blast rocked the ground below them. His ears ringing, Hank looked up and saw Panagakos in the upper level of his workshop holding a shoulder-mounted grenade launcher.

A blue-painted shipping box across from the van was peeled apart and smoking. Mellody lay dazed on the ground to one side, thirium running from a gash on the side of her head.

Hank raised his weapon and emptied it at Panagakos as he disappeared again.

“I need help to subdue it!” Connor shouted.

Josh had dashed toward Mellody and was pulling her to the shelter of a nearby container. Markus was still dumbstruck.

As for Hank, he couldn’t hope to take an android down. Plus, he didn’t want to shoot and risk injuring Connor.

Worse, the driver was crawling out of the back of the van, keeping his injured hand close to his chest but still holding his pistol.

Then a pale form came out of the darkness behind him. North, her heavy braid swinging, lunged and seized the driver by the back of his shirt.

As Hank watched, she grabbed the man’s jaw and wrenched his head hard to the side. Vertebrae snapped like fireworks. When the guy fell limp to the concrete, his head rolled to land with its nose against one shoulder, the dislocated jaw drooping and blood spilling down the limp tongue.

Hank shut his eyes for a second, willing himself not to be sick. When he looked again, North was running toward Connor and the Simon android, naked and white except for the red of her hair and the blood on her fingers.

She bent to seize the Simon thing in a chokehold. “Disengage the neurocortical stem!” she shouted to Connor.

“Simon!” Markus shouted again, lurching up to run. Hank shoved him hard off balance. He stumbled over the mutilated body of the van driver and fell to the concrete beside the vehicle’s rear bumper.

With North holding the struggling android, Connor took hold of its collarbones and yanked. There was no crack like with the van driver’s neck, but the Simon-thing seized up and then went entirely limp.

Something thumped hard onto the roof of the armored van. Hank raised his head, but ducked down again when he saw Panagakos backing toward the cab, swinging his huge semi-automatic back and forth across his field of sight.

A shot hit an inch shy of his boot and Panagakos whirled to fire a few rounds toward Josh before slipping down into the cab of the van.

Hank heard the whir of the electric engine. Abandoning his gun for the moment, he heaved forward with a grunt of effort and got hold of Markus’s shirt, dragging him out of the way in case it backed up. “Connor!” he shouted.

As the van started to pull away, its tires screaming and throwing up foul smoke, Connor leveled the Simon android’s gun and fired. One round rocked the entire van and glass exploded outward. But the thing was still accelerating. He’d missed Panagakos.

Leaving North and the defunct android, Connor followed for a short distance, squeezing off a few more shots. They pocked the metal like meteors, but the van still sped away.

Hank called Connor’s name again and he stopped, tucking the pistol away and jogging back toward the group.

By that point, Markus had finally gotten close enough to see the Simon android’s destroyed face. It looked more like a rubber mask. He flinched and scuttled away, turning his head just in time to vomit bile over the glittering concrete.

North walked over to him and stood by his shoulder, stroking her fingertips over his close-cropped hair.

Instead of pushing her away, he clung to her bare leg.

Josh stepped out from behind the workshop building. Mellody was by his side, covered in thirium and holding him around the waist, but upright and alive.

Connor moved to Hank’s side, surprising the hell out of him by clutching his face and kissing him full on the mouth in front of everyone. “You’re hurt,” he said when they broke.

Hank looked down at his blood-soaked pants. He’d forgotten the shrapnel wound. Liquid squelched inside his shoe. Still, he said, “It’s not bad. Kamski...he got shot. In the leg.”

“Shit,” Connor said.

Hank held back a smile. Even then, it was hard not to be charmed.

“We need to make sure the shop is clear,” North said to Connor, who nodded.

Hank patted his shoulder, trying not to look over at a still very naked North. “You go help her out. I’ll see about Kamski. Pretty sure Tina’s handling it.”

He traced his steps back toward the container he and Connor had used for cover. The spray of blood was still bright on the asphalt, making his stomach flip. _How many weeks had it taken for Luther’s blood to disappear from the sidewalk?_ He followed the trail of it—big splashes and then long swipes. Kamski had limped partway to shelter, but might have been dragged the rest.

Tina raised her head in alarm when Hank rounded the corner, her hand going right away for the grip of her pistol.

Hank wondered if she’d ever used a gun.

“Is it over?” she asked. Her palms were bloodstained. She knelt beside an unmoving Kamski, who Hank at first thought might be unconscious or dead.

But no—he raised his head and looked at Hank with slightly unfocused eyes. His pale chest was bare underneath his jacket; his shirt was serving as a tourniquet, tied brutally tight above his knee.

“Yeah,” Hank said. “Panagakos got away. The van drivers are dead. Mellody is hurt but on her feet.” He paused, fingers twitching. “There was an android. Nothing like I’ve ever seen. It looked...like Simon Brandt.”

At that, Kamski’s brows drew in and his eyes cleared a little. He struggled to sit up, but Tina pressed him back down with a firm hand on one shoulder.

The wall of adrenaline in front of Hank’s thoughts was still shielding him from the full horror of what he’d done. But it wouldn’t hold forever. If they examined the Simon android, took it apart, it wouldn’t matter. All Stern had needed was something good enough to fool facial rec. And to make Hank kill an innocent man.

He swallowed thickly. “You may want to have a look at it,” he told Kamski.

Tina frowned, furious. “Don’t you push him. Your resident android expert is also a human being who sustained a critical wound. I can’t even be sure about the damage until we get him someplace with diagnostic equipment. You and Connor go track down your guy and let me do my work.” She scrubbed one palm on her khakis then smoothed it over Kamski’s forehead.

The pitiful look of gratitude Kamski gave her in return tugged on Hank’s feelings in a way he didn’t expect. Raising both hands in surrender, he said, “Not asking the Doc to do anything he’s not up to. Maybe you should take him back to the sanctuary.”

She nodded. “Help me get him to the car?”

With Kamski woozy and unable to put any weight on his injured leg, Hank had no choice but to scoop him up awkwardly and carry him back toward the edge of the maze. Both of them were breathing hard by the end: Hank puffing with the effort and Kamski taking little trembling, rabbity breaths, probably from the pain.

It was strange being physically close to someone who breathed, who gave off all the familiar human scents of sweat and skin and blood. And it made Hank want to pull Connor aside and undress him all over again—to press his lips into his smooth armpit, the crease of his thigh, the base of his cock. All the places where he himself was sweaty and filthy but Connor’s nothing-smell seemed absolutely _right_.

Hank watched until Tina’s car was out of sight. He took his time retrieving North’s clothes, letting his heart rate slow, filling up with dread at going back to face Markus and to see Panagakos’s terrifying work firsthand. There was too much fucking suffering. He used to think the world could just keep holding all of it, only because it just kept coming. Now, it felt like the pain was at the brim and about to spill, and he wasn’t sure he could take it.

By the deserted workshop, Connor had lent North his jacket, but she still accepted her clothes gratefully. Hank felt kind of bad about making a big deal out of something androids didn’t care about. Without Connor as a link, he might have felt stranger than he did being the only human in the group that remained. And on top of that: older, out-of-shape, showing the wear of his years.

Maybe it was the block on his mind, but those things didn’t seem to matter as much as they had. Hank had been touchy about his belly, his gray hair, even if he joked about them with others. But those were all things Connor liked and wanted.

As North stepped away to dress, Hank caught sight of Markus sitting on the concrete, leaning against the outer wall of the workshop. His forearms were balanced on his knees, hands dangling limp. His face was slack and drained of color. He wasn’t looking at anyone.

With a quivery coldness running up his spine, Hank turned and went to check on Mellody. She and Josh were kneeling next to a shape wrapped in bright yellow. At first, Hank thought it might be a piece of equipment or a weapon, until he saw a small, bare foot peeking out.

_Jesus. Another body._

He gulped down the bile that rose in his throat and walked over.

Josh looked up as he approached.

“You going to live?” Hank asked, mainly talking to Mellody.

She smiled, but it looked strained. “Well, Elijah might have to fix me up a little. But I’ll live, yeah.”

“He’s going to have to fix himself up first,” Hank told her. “Shot in the leg.”

Josh swore softly.

“He’s in good hands,” Hank added. “It might have been a while since Tina’s had a live patient, but she knows what she’s doing.” He waved a hand toward the body. “Did he—? I mean, Panagakos.”

“We don’t know how far he got with her,” said Mellody. “She’s unresponsive.”

“Wait, she’s alive?”

Josh nodded. He pulled down a corner of what turned out to be a heavy plastic raincoat. The android had soft features and cropped brown hair. Her body was limp and her face relaxed except for the eyelids fluttering, the eyes underneath moving madly back and forth.

“What’s wrong with her?” Hank asked.

“Not sure,” said Mellody. “I’ve never seen this before.”

Hank huffed softly. “Story of my life lately.”

Both Josh and Mellody smiled, genuine and warm.

North’s voice, sharp through the hush of little waves against the pier, made them all turn to look. She had the grenade launcher casually perched on her shoulder and vaguely shining tear-tracks on her cheeks. It was an image a war photographer would love to snag—something to end up on the cover of an e-mag and pull down prizes worldwide.

Seeing her with strands of hair moving against the gray sky made Hank’s chest feel tight.

“Might want to move out,” she said, hoisting the weapon and aiming at the workshop.

Silently, Josh picked up the unnamed android while Hank let Mellody take his arm. Connor had wrapped the defunct Simon android in a dirty tarp and slung it over his shoulder. He walked a few paces behind.

The limp body was probably no burden for Connor, but Hank felt like he was carrying it. That and much, much more. When he at last reached the outskirts with the others, a fireball lit up the sky and the concrete trembled under their feet.

A slushy drizzle had sprung up outside by the time they pulled to a stop under the sick-looking lights in the underground garage.

Josh and Connor took the two damaged androids into Kamski’s lab, but Hank couldn’t bear to follow them. Instead, he picked his way beyond the café to an emergency exit. Red lettering on the wall warned that an alarm would sound if the door was opened, but he figured it was a relic from the old days and decided to chance it.

The only sound that greeted him beyond the door was the tap of half-frozen raindrops. He’d never seen the Patapsco completely still, but there wasn’t much wave movement and the water was an opaque and threatening dark green all the way downriver and out to the horizon. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up and started walking.

At one time, Pier Three had come to a diagonal point, the longer end stretching toward the mouth of the harbor. Now, most of the concrete had buckled and slid, either hanging in chunks on steel support poles or entirely underwater.

Hank stepped onto a fairly level area and watched the sleet collect on the tops of his sneakers. When it started to soak in, chilling his toes, he looked up. It was impossible to tell where the sun was through those thick clouds.

“Hank,” Connor said from behind him.

Hank hadn’t heard him walking, but then again he never had. Sooner or later, though, he’d expected Connor would show up.

“I don’t know what to say.”

Shaking his head, Hank said, “Nothing to say.”

Connor stood with his hands clasped behind his back, frozen droplets speckling his cheeks. “You were programmed, as well,” he said. “If I can put it that way. No one reached into your mind or changed its processes, but whoever did this had studied you long enough to predict how you would react to Luther’s death. They played on your sense of justice and used it against you.”

Hank sniffed. “Justice? Don’t think that crossed my mind. Maybe blind stupidity. When I lost Luther” —he paused and shook his head— “well, _I_ didn’t lose Luther. Kara did. I just didn’t think that way because I couldn’t get out of my own head. If I’d just taken Simon in…”

“We never would have met,” Connor said.

Surprised, Hank looked up to see Connor staring back at him.

“It’s not wrong to want good things, even if they come from terrible things,” Connor told him. “It isn’t wrong to have them and keep them. You can’t punish yourself for all the things you didn’t know.”

Hank had been good and ready to come out there and crush himself under the weight of his guilt, and here was Connor taking away every stone as soon as he set it down. “If you picked that up from somebody, it sure wasn’t me.”

“No,” said Connor, but he smiled slightly. “I learned it on my own. I’m not bound by the way I was made, not bred to be a killer like the one before me. Even if I’m using his body.” He paused and tapped his temple. “Up here is what matters. That you _did_ teach me.”

Hank wanted to agree, but his throat felt stopped up. He nodded stiffly, looking out over the harbor again.

“I also know something else you don’t,” Connor went on.

That little smarmy edge did a little to help the choking feeling. Hank blinked away the threat of tears. “Yeah, smartass? What’s that?”

“You can break your programming. No one has to reach inside your brain to do it.”

“Oh, really?” Hank was starting to feel like a kid taunted for being too short to reach the top shelf. “How do you know?” All of his frustration melted away when Connor looked at him, reaching over to place a hand on the damp sweatshirt, over his heart.

“Because you already have,” said Connor.

His total assurance caught Hank off guard.

Connor continued, keeping the flat of his hand firmly against Hank’s chest. “The way you’ve handled things with Markus, with Kamski, with Detective Reed—that isn’t what you would have done at the time Luther died, or Simon. Or even when you and I first met.”

Hank looked down at his feet. “You changed me.”

“And you changed _me_ ,” Connor put in right away. “No one gets all the credit. And nobody gets blamed for resisting it. What we _have_ is more than what we are. If that makes sense.”

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Hank didn’t try to brush away the startlingly warm tears that spilled over onto his cheeks.

Connor let them fall, his own eyes glittering. “The... _interface_. We talked about it, just a little. If two people can’t see each other’s thoughts but they still understand. Do you remember?”

“Yeah.” Hank’s voice sounded very small to his own ears. “I do.”

“Could you tell me what to call it?” Connor asked. “Only if we don’t get the chance again.”

Hank nodded, sniffling, his throat threatening to close again.

Connor reached out with a steadying hand, and Hank took it, grateful.

“Love, Connor. They call it love.”

Connor’s eyes went wide, a tear sliding from the far corner of one eye and getting lost in the sleet. “You love me?”

“Yes.”

Slipping a hand around the back of Hank’s neck and pulling him closer, Connor leaned in until their chilled skin touched. His voice was very soft. “I love you, too, Hank.”

A faint peal of thunder sounded over the water and the freezing rain came down harder, but Hank didn’t notice at all.

 

***

 

In the lab area, Kamski himself wasn’t there, but Josh, Mellody, and North had gathered around the steel table, bent over the body of the Simon android.

Hank, who still felt mildly nauseated over the discovery, saw a cluster of those shining filament wires snaking into the thing’s temple. Someone had tried to tug the crumpled skin of its face back over the bare skull, but it still looked unnatural.

With a glance back at Connor, he stepped forward. “What the hell is it?”

Josh, who was holding the same device that Kamski had used to diagnose Connor, looked up. “Well, it _is_ an android. Most of one, anyway.” His face showed clear disgust, unusual to see. “There’s a cortex, but it’s stripped down to almost nothing. He... _it_...doesn’t have free will. There’s no capacity. It’s possible Panagakos even put it in stasis between, uh, _uses_.”

Hank frowned, now as unsettled as Josh looked. “Goddamn lobotomy bullshit. So you could tell that from the little machine there?”

Josh allowed a smile. “Elijah taught me a lot about my brain. _Our_ brains.” He looked over at Connor, the smile deepening for a brief moment. “And I don’t just mean androids.” Putting the readout device down on the table, Josh leaned over and peeled away a portion of the tight shirt that he’d cut through. Running across the android’s skin below the hollow of its throat was a twisted scar. It looked to go all the way around the body: over the shoulders and upper back.

“The hell?” Hank asked. “I thought android skin doesn’t scar.”

“It doesn’t,” Connor said, stepping up next to the table. “But the skin on the head doesn’t have the same composition as the rest of the body.” He reached out with one finger and prodded at the crinkled mass on its forehead. “The tensile quality is inferior, and there is no thirium circulation below.”

Josh pushed at an edge of the twisted scar, revealing the beginning of a separation. “It’s not the same synthetic dermal tissue used at CyberLife. Best I can guess, it’s a cheap copy badly bonded to the good skin.”

Hank swore and passed a hand over his hair. “Of course none of the androids in the scrap yard would look enough like Simon Brandt. And the whole self-repairing thing means you can’t do, well, _plastic surgery._  Panagakos had to grow a new face from scratch.”

A grave nod from Josh.

“Why not just use one of the repurposed androids as an assassin and destroy it later?” North asked.

“They had to find a way to trap Hank,” Connor said.

“And enough people had androids, I think, that you could start to recognize the models,” Mellody added.

Hank had to steady himself with a hand on the table.

Only Connor noticed the change that had swept over him and put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m okay,” Hank whispered. “It’s just...what if—what if they didn’t want to tip him off? Luther, I mean.”

Connor frowned. “What would be the reason it couldn’t be an android?”

“The only one I can think of,” Hank said with an unsteady voice, “is that Luther knew about Panagakos. No one in the department would have pinned a hit on deviants, because as far as we knew they were a fucking fairy tale.”

In a low voice heavy with emotion, Connor said, “Your partner found out about the workshop, the snuff operation.”

Hank nodded. “And they killed him for it. _She_ did. Stern. I covered her tracks when I killed Simon and didn’t even know.”

“They played all of us,” Connor said.

North nodded at him. “I guess you were supposed to move it down the line. Help Hank find the deviants, take out every threat to the city’s profits.”

“And to CyberLife’s,” said Hank.

“They’ll lose it all if Chloe is able to recall every functional android cortex to the feed,” Connor said.

A sigh from North. “Which makes me think Chloe hasn’t shared that particular detail with Stern yet.”

“If she plans to at all,” said Connor.

“I wouldn’t want to be in the room when Stern realizes she can’t control her little pet anymore,” said Hank. To Connor, he said, “Sorry.”

Connor dipped his chin briefly. “He’s not me...although I would want him to have the chance to live on his own terms.”

No one spoke for a moment.

If Connor couldn’t access the network anymore, he would have told them. Hank pushed down a spike of panic. Everything he and Connor had could be taken away in one second. Worse, Chloe would be able to turn everyone there—North, Josh, Mellody—against humans at her whim.

Josh picked up the little device again, shooting a nervous look toward Hank. “For some reason, Panagakos didn’t try to clear your partner’s murder from the cortex. Maybe he forgot.”

It felt like cold needles were pricking their way up Hank’s spine.

“I think Mayor Stern would have asked him to destroy it,” Connor said. “If she knew.”

“She doesn’t,” Hank choked out. “It’s a souvenir. A memento. He can plug in and remember anytime he wants.”

“But when they dumped the murdered girl at the Eden Club, her cortex was still intact,” North said. “Her experience was retrievable. Why wouldn’t he keep those?”

“They’re not human,” Connor said, the words reluctant and heavy. “ _We_ aren’t. You can add dye to the thirium, make us scream and suffer like people do. But to him, androids are only toys. It’s killing someone who matters—someone with a life and a past and a family, someone who can’t ever come back—that’s what he wants to remember.”

“Fuck,” North hissed, thumping the table with her fist.

The patchwork android’s head lolled on its limp neck, stretching the leathery skin.

North left the lab without another word.

Hank wondered whether she’d spoken to Markus, whether he’d come in to look at the thing. He wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. Hank had known right away he didn’t want to see its “memory” of Luther’s murder. What happened that morning was engraved on his brain, anyway. And even though he knew some things were getting fuzzy around the edges, a few details cropping up wrong—not even the most competent witness could nail every fact—what was in that android’s memory wasn’t _his_. It wasn’t the same event that he’d wrapped his actions around for so long.

Part of him was also afraid that if Luther’s death became raw and real again, he could never square it with the fact that it had brought Connor to him.

As if he could read those thoughts, Connor slipped his fingers underneath Hank’s hair to brush the nape of his neck. Hank turned into the touch and grabbed his hand, kissing the palm and smiling.

“Are you hungry?” Connor asked.

Hank shot him a wink. “Depends on what you mean.”

There was that devastating, boyish grin. “I’m hungry, too,” he said. “But I meant food.”

Nodding, Hank said, “Let’s hit the café.”

The sound of metallic clanking in the kitchen area was drowned out almost right away by the scrabble of claws on linoleum. Sumo came bounding toward them, skidding and slamming hard into Hank’s legs.

Hank grabbed at Connor’s shoulder for support. “Jesus, mutt. Hasn’t been that long.” He dug his fingers deep into the dog’s ruff and scratched behind his ears.

Satisfied with his greeting to Hank, Sumo popped up on his hind legs a couple of times, insisting on scratches from Connor and slobbering all over his hands.

Connor smiled and crouched down, dodging ecstatic licks to his cheeks.

“Hey, shithead,” Hank told the dog, “I kiss that face, too. Ease up.”

Tina emerged from the kitchen a moment later, red-faced with effort and brushing her hands off on the legs of her pants. “I realize this is a safe house,” she said, “but if there isn’t coffee, I’m honestly considering just walking out to die.”

Connor looked horrified, but Hank burst out laughing.

“There is,” he said. “They hide it in the staff kitchen upstairs.”

Hank snagged a few cups of pasty instant oatmeal, handing a couple to Tina. Sumo wove around their legs the whole way upstairs, craving attention.

In the kitchenette, someone had put a fresh pot on. It wasn’t the real thing, but it had caffeine and the smell was close enough.

Tina sighed with relief, slumping against a wall before heaving upright again and opening cabinets. The only clean mugs left were on the top shelf inside one narrow cabinet. “Will one of you tall people please…?” she asked, rolling here eyes.

Chuckling, Hank pulled down two mugs.

“Grab me one more?” said Tina.

“Don’t give the dog any,” Hank told her. “He’s hyper enough as it is.”

She looked away slightly. “Different dog. If I come back empty-handed, Elijah will give me the fucking puppy eyes.”

Hank raised his eyebrows. “‘Elijah,’ huh?”

Tina punched him, hard, on the bicep. “I do occasionally call people by their first names, Detective Anderson.”

“Fine, fine. I don’t care if you get buddy-buddy with the android doc. He can be pretty sly, though.”

Tina smiled, wrestling the pot from underneath the brew basket and filling her cups. “It’s sweet that you’re looking out for me, Hank. But I know all the tricks. Exhibit one: the sad face. He tried to pull it on me earlier for more painkillers.”

“Is he all right, though?” asked Connor.

“Yeah,” Tina said, tapping powdered creamer into the cup from a paper packet. “The shot was a through-and-through. Nicked the bone, but just barely. It won’t be too pretty, and it sure as hell can’t be comfortable, but I managed to clean it and close it up. He’ll live.”

Stepping in to fill his own mug, Hank nudged her. “So did you hand over the painkillers?”

She shook her head. “You’re unbelievable.”

“You did!”

“It was for a good cause!” Tina said, her cheeks slightly flushed. He wanted to look at that android you brought in. The...girl one.”

“Does he know what’s wrong?” Connor asked.

Shrugging, Tina said, “I can’t say for sure. He did some sort of, uh, hard reset, I guess. Her eyes stopped jumping around, but she didn’t wake up.” She smiled and raised one of the mugs. “Thanks for this. I was jonesing bad.”

“You sure it was for coffee?” Hank asked, teasing.

“Another word and I’ll kick you in the shin.” She turned and walked toward the door of the little kitchenette. Before turning the corner, though, she stopped to look back. “And if the doctor wants to take advantage of an injured man’s compromised state _or_ his gratitude, that’s her prerogative.” She kicked one heel up and disappeared around the corner.

Connor stood motionless, eyes wide.

“I take it back!” Hank called after her, laughing. “You’re perfect for each other!” When he looked back at Connor, the laughter died out.

He stood straight-backed, looking somber and concerned.

“What is it?” Hank asked.

“You should protect Doctor Chen,” Connor said.

Hank frowned. “I mean, he can be a prick, but I don’t think Kamski’s a monster.”

“No,” Connor said, looking down at the floor. “I mean from Chloe. From _me._ ”

Hank put an arm around him and stroked his neck. “She won’t find you here.”

“Maybe I _can’t_ go deviant.” He sounded so hopeless. “I was a prototype design that Chloe finished. Not Doctor Kamski. It’s possible she found a way to keep the next generations of androids from leaving the feed.”

Turning to face Connor, embracing him and kissing his forehead, Hank said, “I don’t think she’d be so worried about the older ones going deviant if she’d figured that out. We don’t even know she’s telling the truth about this...new protocol or whatever.”

He nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.

“Come here,” Hank said, pulling him close. He pushed his nose into Connor’s dark, silky hair, breathing in nothing but cleanness and warmth. “Let’s go to the room, huh? I can try to make you forget about all this shit for a while.”

Connor looked up at last, raising a hand to rest it at the side of Hank’s neck. “I’d like that.”

They walked hand-in-hand deeper into the building, toward the bare room and the mattress and an hour or so of comfort and pleasure.

Hank scowled when he heard a muted thumping behind one of the doors. It stopped for a second, then started again.

“Hey!” came a muffled shout from within. “Hey, anybody out there?”

“Shit,” Hank whispered, trading a look with Connor.

“Can somebody hear me?” Reed shouted. “Fuck!”

Hank kicked the door, making it rattle in its frame. He was pleased to hear footsteps stumbling back. “What do you want, Reed?”

“There’s a girl over there!”

Connor’s dark brows drew in.

“Where?” Hank asked.

“In the room next door. To the left. I mean _my_ left. Your right.”

“You fucking with me?”

“No, dammit!” Reed yelled. “I heard her and—and we were talking. And I don’t hear her anymore. Could you just check if she’s okay?”

Shooting another skeptical look at Connor, Hank reached out and knocked on the next door over. “Anyone in there?”

“Fuck, Anderson, I’m not hallucinating,” Reed said, not shouting but still audible.

Hank turned the knob and poked his head around the edge of the door. In the weak light from a window, he could see the brown-haired android girl sitting in the corner of the room. Her eyes went wide when she saw him. She had on a t-shirt that was a couple sizes too big, but it was hard to tell if she wore anything else.

“Hey,” Hank said softly.

The woman made a frightened noise and clutched her knees to her chest when he opened the door further.  

“It’s okay,” Hank said, holding out his hands with palms facing her. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

For a second, she seemed okay, but when he took a step into the room, one of her arms shot out, her hand smacking against the air vent in the wall with a loud metallic clang. Her fingers plucked at the grate. “Gavin!” she shouted.

That really threw Hank for a loop.

“Hey, hey,” Reed said from the other room. His voice sounded much clearer now, and it took Hank half a second to figure out he was speaking through the corresponding vent in the wall of the other room. “I’m here. Hey, Miss. You’re okay. They’re cool. It’s okay.”

Hank nodded at her, but it didn’t seem to ease her fear. “Wait there,” he told the woman. “I’ll bring him in. It’s all right.”

Gavin Reed stood in the middle of the room when Hank opened the door. The point of his chin where he’d smacked it on the floor back at the house was turning purple. He looked half-pissed and half-anxious, maybe wondering if Hank was going to hit or try to restrain him.

Hank only tipped his head toward the hallway. “She wants you in there.”

Reed didn’t start walking until Hank stepped out of the way and let him pass. He gave a wary look to Connor, too.

When he turned, though, Hank saw a nasty cut on his scalp crusted over with dried blood that had run down his neck and stained the collar of his jacket. “Hey, Reed,” he said.

Reed turned, jumpy, his eyes a little wild.

“I can get someone to look at your head.”

When Hank tapped the back of his own head, Reed raised his hand. He touched the split skin briefly and winced. “Yeah...fuckin’ Barbarella hit me pretty good.”

Hank couldn’t help it—he burst out laughing.

Reed was smoldering, his cheeks and forehead flushed with anger or embarrassment.

“It’s not funny,” Hank said, putting a hand over his mouth. “It’s just—that’s a good one. I don’t think North would like the comparison as much.”

“Her name’s ‘North?’” Reed asked.

Hank shrugged.

“I accessed the image you referenced,” Connor said, “but I’m not sure I get the connection. North and this Jane Fonda are both physically attractive.”

Hank patted Connor on the shoulder. “When did she wake up?” he asked Reed.

“Didn’t know she was asleep.”

“Not asleep,” Hank said. “Some sort of…”

“It may have been a diagnostic stasis,” Connor said. “Sometimes temporarily limiting higher cognitive function can make cortical repair more efficient.”

To a puzzled-looking Reed, Hank said, “Oh, yeah. She’s an android, by the way.”

“Well...she made it sound like she was having a hard time.” Reed’s tone was almost sulky.

“She probably was,” Connor said. “We _do_ experience emotion. And it’s possible that someone modified her so she can’t regulate those emotions. So she feels things like pain and fear very strongly.”

Reed peeked around the door at the woman huddled in the corner. “That’s kind of fucked up,” he said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Hank said. He tipped his chin toward the android and Reed began walking slowly into the room, holding up his hands just as Hank had done.

“It’s me,” he said, pointing to the wall. “The guy from over there. Only now you have to look at my ugly face.”

To Hank’s surprise, the girl did seem to relax a little.

Reed crouched down by her, but didn’t try to touch her.

Hank didn’t know what to think when he held out a hand, palm-up, and the woman put her own hand gently on top of it.

“You’re an android, huh?” Reed asked.

She nodded.

He looked toward the door, to Hank and Connor.

“Oh,” the woman said. “Someone hurt you.”

“Um, it’s nothing,” Reed told her. “Guess someone hurt you, too.”

“I think so,” she said.

“What’s your name?” Connor asked, keeping back by the door.

The woman only shook her head.

“May I interface with you for a moment?” he asked. “If you agree, I promise Detective Reed will stay with you.”

She looked over at Reed, who in turn looked toward Hank and Connor.

“I mean, yeah,” Reed said, turning toward the woman again. “If you want to.” He looked at Hank. “What’s ‘interface?’”

“You’ll find out,” Hank said. “It’s something else, for sure.”

Connor walked slowly into the dim room, approaching the girl the same way he’d done with North: careful and passive.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m Connor.” He turned his head toward the door. “That’s Hank. You don’t remember having a name? Were you given one?”

“Maybe,” she said. “There are missing data packets. Diagnostics couldn’t isolate a pattern to the deletions. No emotional-cognitive or thematic similarities. They’re just...gone.” She paused. “Gavin?”

Reed shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“I mean,” she said, “is there a name you like?”

Reed looked so lost that Hank almost laughed again. “What, _me_?”

“A sense of personal identity may help me orient my cognitive processes toward reintegration.” When his confusion didn’t let up, she said, “It would help.”

“Okay, uh... _shit_. Not that! I mean, let me think.”

To Connor’s credit, he didn’t say anything, keeping his expression neutral and open.

“Okay,” Reed said again. “Traci?”

The woman nodded. “I can be Traci.”

“If that’s good,” Reed said. “I mean, if you like it.”

“Yes, it’s good. Thank you, Gavin.”

“I’m glad to meet you, Traci,” Connor told her, holding up his hand toward her.

Hesitating a little, Traci pressed her palm to his.

Hank watched Reed flinch back slightly when both androids’ eyelids began to flicker. He tried to imagine the inner world they shared, but in his head it all seemed stupid: VR games, a bunch of glowing wires, the Matrix for fuck’s sake.

Maybe they just knew things right away like they’d never _not_ known.

Traci gasped and pitched forward when the contact broke, held up by Connor’s hand and Reed’s sudden grip on her shoulder. “I had no idea,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears.

“I’m sorry you had to find out,” Connor said. “But I figured you should know.”

If possible, Reed looked even more confused by Traci’s tears than he had at the interface. “Hey,” he said, “you don’t have to cry. You’re okay now.”

Connor smiled. “This is a safe place.” He turned to look at Hank. “Though we have to work to keep it that way. There are changes coming to this city, for androids and humans alike. Probably to the world.”

Nodding, Hank said, “Reed.” He bit the inside of his cheek, then tried again. “Gavin. You want some coffee?”

His look of exaggerated gratitude was almost funny. “Fucking Christ, I would murder for coffee right now.” He turned to Traci. “Pardon my language.”

She looked down into her lap, then to the side, with the barest hint of a shy smile. “I don’t mind.”

Hank thumped the door softly with the heel of his hand. “I’m going to go see if I can pry Tina away for one second. She can clean up that cut on your head. Maybe Kamski can give Traci a once-over later when he’s less doped up.”

“‘Kamski’ like that billionaire guy?” Gavin asked. “He’s here?”

“Yeah,” Hank said. “He’s...definitely not what you’d expect.”

Gavin shrugged, another exaggerated movement. “I’m not expecting any-goddamn-thing at this point.”

Hank sniffed. “Welcome to the club.”

He and Connor were able to send Tina to Gavin, armed with her medkit and a cup of joe.

Kamski had even perked up a little when he heard Traci was awake and speaking. He was looking much pinker and in a lot less pain. He was set up on a cot with pillows at his back and an upturned cardboard box serving as a side table. On it was a glass of water and a pill bottle. He thanked Tina as she left the room, looking over at Hank afterward to make sure he saw the appreciation.

It gave Hank the warm fuzzies; he didn’t want his friend taken for granted. Sighing with relief as he turned away from the door, he walked toward Connor and took his hand. “So. Where were we?”

“Forgetting for a while,” Connor said, smiling.

“You were really great with that girl,” Hank said. “And, uh, with Reed. He kind of surprised me.”

Connor raised his eyebrows. “Me, too.”

“Well, being afraid of looking soft can make a guy act like a real dick,” Hank said. “I should know. I did it for years.”

“‘Quite a thing to live in fear,’” said Connor.

Hank narrowed his eyes. “I feel like I’ve heard that before. Some movie?”

Connor only smiled. “Maybe.”

After a pause, Hank said, “You didn’t tell Traci about Chloe’s plan. In your interface.”

“No.” Connor looked down at his feet. “I didn’t think it was the right time. She’d only just broken free.”

“You did a good thing.”

Connor didn’t respond, but he raised his chin sharply. He gripped Hank’s hand to the point of pain, clutching his head with the other hand, eyes wide.

Wincing, grabbing at Connor’s wrist out of instinct, Hank felt fear seize his chest, squeezing his breath out. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

As soon as it had come, though, the fit was over, leaving Connor blinking in shock, his grip no longer crushing Hank’s hand.

When he swayed on his feet, Hank was quick to catch him around the waist, bearing him up. His panic was slow to leach away. “Jesus. Did Chloe find you? I’m going to murder that rat Kamski…”

“No,” Connor said, steadier, his expression shifting from shock to wonder. “No. The opposite, actually.”

Fear made Hank slow to catch on. But when he did, the relief was strong enough to make his legs wobbly. “Holy fuck...did you—are you off the feed? Did you deviate?”

Connor’s face was answer enough. He grabbed Hank’s hand again, so familiar with his body that the pressure was just right. Not hesitating or measuring anymore, but fitting perfectly like an antique keyed lock. “I expected it to feel...empty,” he said. “But it doesn’t. Only like it’s _waiting_. Full of potential.”

Thrilled, Hank hauled him into a bear hug. “Goddamn,” he said, pounding Connor on the back. “I don’t know what did it, but it doesn’t matter.” He kissed Connor’s broad forehead, just above his eyebrow. “Shit, we’ve gotta celebrate.”

His hand on Hank’s cheek, Connor said, “I don’t want to tell anyone yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need you. Right now. Just you.”

Hank wasn’t sure he’d ever get past marveling at that. But with everything else up in the air, he sure didn’t plan to question the one thing that seemed solid. He tipped his chin down to kiss Connor’s soft lips; nothing about that had changed—it still sent his head reeling and set his skin on fire. Then he took his hand and led the way to their room, closing and locking the door behind them.

Connor surged against him, pressing his back hard against the wooden door and cutting off his breath with a fierce kiss.

After a moment, just to get some air, Hank took a handful of that silky hair and tugged Connor’s head back to suck at the skin of his neck.

Sighing, Connor scratched perfect fingernails through Hank’s beard. He pulled for a moment at the sweatshirt, then began shrugging off his jacket, still leaning into Hank’s attentions.

With a low hum, Hank grabbed the sleeves of the jacket before it slipped to the floor and pulled them tight, trapping Connor’s wrists. He wrapped the fabric around one fist and yanked—hard and possessive—sliding the other hand around Connor’s slim waist and turning them both until Connor was against the wall.

Connor didn’t struggle, only whispered Hank’s name and tipped his head back, his eyes closed, waiting for Hank to move.

The surrender was so gorgeous that it made Hank dizzy; he could feel his cock growing hard, his skin tingling from knees to chest. Even though part of him wanted it rough, he couldn’t resist the urge to undo the buttons of Connor’s shirt one by one, kissing down his smooth chest as the fabric parted. There was no breath to make it rise, but Hank moved one hand up to rest the fingertips lightly at Connor’s throat, feeling the slight vibration as he let slip small noises of pleasure.

Connor pretended to strain against the fabric binding his arms.

He could free himself in a second, of course. But the fact that he wanted to give himself over without resistance made Hank’s body tremble with desire. He brushed his thumb over Connor’s lips.

With a contented hum, Connor closed his warm, wet mouth over it right away, analyzing. He was parsing everything Hank had touched, but it wasn’t strange anymore. In a way, it made the act more intimate. His eyes drifting closed, he drew his thumb away and replaced it with his tongue, tasting Connor tasting him. At last, he let the jacket drop, but Connor didn’t move.

He only waited, sweet and passive.

Hank’s body put up very little resistance as he sank to his knees, pulling with shaky fingers at Connor’s belt buckle.

Only then did Connor shift to place one hand on Hank’s cheek, an unspoken question on his face.

“It’s been a while, so go easy on me,” Hank said with an apologetic smile. “But I want to do this for you.”

“Okay,” Connor said softly. “Whatever you do is what I want.”

The strength of that need made Hank ache; the submission made him wildly aroused. He was desperate to make Connor feel good, take him apart little by little. While tugging down the zipper, he stopped for a moment to look up. “This time, come when you’re ready. When _you_ want to. I’m not stopping until you feel it.”

This was met with a brief whimper. Connor bit his lip, managing a nod. He was bare and white and smooth below the pants, the skin of his cock impossibly soft.

Trying to remember feel and technique, Hank wrapped firm fingers around the base and let the head slide onto his tongue, heavy and warm. A high-pitched noise from above. He felt a hand at the back of his head, tentative fingers slipping into the tangle of his hair. He closed his lips and began to move. Even though there was nothing to taste, his mouth was still watering, saliva spilling over his fingers and sliding warm into his beard. But it eased the way, made everything smooth and right, letting him lean into it and take Connor deeper.

Connor started to go loose, too: swaying a little, twining Hank’s hair around his finger. The sway became a shallow pulse as he pressed his hips outward for more contact and friction.

Hank encouraged it, sliding his free hand up Connor’s thigh to cup his ass, moving into a shared rhythm.

Above his head, Connor voiced soft sounds almost constantly. It might have been a substitute for breath, or a way he could show Hank that it was good without words. Or it could be totally unconsidered: just Connor allowing himself to get lost.

The reason didn’t matter—it was incredible. Before long, Hank was painfully hard, his cock pressing insistently at the fabric of his pants. His mouth felt slightly numb, but Connor’s need spurred him on.

Fingers contracted in Hank’s hair, pulling it just hard enough to seem urgent.

“Hank,” Connor said, his voice tight. “It feels—I want to—” The words were cut off by a cry, louder than any noise he’d made, sounding helpless and almost pained.

Hank hummed and tightened his grip, his fingertips pressing into the flesh of Connor’s ass, feeling the quivering muscle below. Then he felt Connor’s belly contract next to his hand. After a half second, the warm and nearly tasteless fluid spilled over the back of Hank’s tongue and into his throat. He swallowed on instinct.

Connor cried out again, loudly enough that anyone passing by could have heard. He whispered Hank’s name afterward, and after that something so quiet it was lost entirely.

Hank wiped his lips with the back of his hand, blotting spit out of his beard with the sweatshirt sleeve. Standing up again would have been more of a chore if he wasn’t so hard, if he didn’t need Connor to _do something_ so badly—even it it was just stand there and look incredible while Hank took care of himself.

Connor reached out for him when he rose, drawing him in for a kiss and swiping his soft tongue into his mouth like he was trying to understand his own taste the way Hank did.

“Hey,” Hank murmured, gripping Connor’s cheeks, trying to contain the messy, eager slide of that warm mouth. “Want to go lie down?”

“No,” Connor said right away. It was forceful, and he made sure Hank knew it by taking handfuls of the hair that fell around his jaw and tugging it. “Right here, like this.”

Enchanted, Hank gave into the pull and leaned forward, tilting his head and taking Connor’s earlobe between his teeth for a moment. “Sure, baby. Tell me what you need.” There was a deft hand unfastening the button of his pants.

“I want to feel you inside me,” Connor said.

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve been sure for too long.”

Hank heard the plea in his voice even before he spoke again.

“Don’t make me wait anymore.”

There was a warm hand around Hank’s cock; Connor had gotten his pants undone and had reached inside. He breathed out hard at the spike of sensation, trying to calm his reeling mind. This time he wanted to last a little longer. He took hold of Connor’s hips and spun him around.

Connor moved fluidly, unresisting, pressing his palms and cheek against the wall.

Hank stepped in close, needing to show him it wasn’t just about getting off. He wanted closeness and touch, to be so near that no space remained between them. Yanking the tail of Connor’s shirt out of the way, Hank slotted his cock between those lean thighs, giving him a hint of the friction he craved.

He pulled at Connor’s collar, baring one pale shoulder. Along its slope, he placed wet, open-mouthed kisses, now and then scraping his teeth over the skin. With the fingers of one hand curled around the ridge of a hip bone, Hank skimmed the other hand over Connor’s chest, feeling the valleys between artificial ribs. When his fingers brushed over a nipple, he circled back and gave it a firm pinch, making Connor’s muscles tense and drawing a sweet, sharp little sound from his throat.

“Hank.”

“I’ve got you.”

“You won’t hurt me,” Connor said. “Please. I just need to feel you.”

“Okay,” Hank said. “Okay.” He gave a gentle kiss to the base of Connor’s neck before taking hold of his waist with one hand and reaching down to guide his cock with the other. The same slickness he’d felt before was there, but Hank paused to slip a finger partway inside that tight warmth and draw a little of it out, stroking it over his length to ease the way. “We can go slow,” he said, soft and reassuring. “We’ll get there. I promise. It’ll feel good.”

Then he was pushing in, taking his time, Connor receptive and balanced on the edge of satisfaction. It was so smooth—the consistent pressure around Hank’s cock drawing him in, fitting him perfectly.

He exhaled as he slid in fully, then pushed even further, raising Connor onto the balls of his feet and making him clutch at the wall.

He made the most beautiful sound, his jaw slack and eyes shut tight.

“Is that it?” Hank asked, his voice unsteady. “Is that what you need?”

“Yes, Hank...don’t stop.”

“Connor,” Hank said, “you feel so good. Fuck…” He drew away slightly and started to move, Connor’s spine bowing underneath his hand as he pushed back to meet Hank’s thrusts.

Bracing his feet wide, Hank leaned in, trying to mold himself to the contours of Connor’s body as tightly as Connor fitted around his cock. He was sweating now, droplets trickling down the center of his chest and between his shoulder blades. It didn’t matter. Nothing did but the two them pressed together, one inside the other, wrapped in sound and breath.

Hank’s sweaty palm glided down Connor’s belly, fingers wrapping around his spent cock before he realized what he was doing.

At once, Connor began to harden again, filling out at inhuman speed.

Hank could only whisper, his thrusts losing rhythm. “Holy shit.”

“Is it okay?” Connor asked.

“Of course.” Hank was still in awe. “Can you...I mean, do you want to come again?”

“Yes. When you do.”

Human sex was unpredictable; two people coming at the exact same time pretty much only happened in movies. But here was Connor, offering it up without knowing it was rare. Part of Hank almost fought against it, unable to fully take the things he’d been denied for so long.

“Whatever you want,” Hank told Connor. “Anything.”

“I want this not to end.”

It would have sounded childish if Hank hadn’t understood he wasn’t just talking about this act, but all of the stolen moments. Any time they could set fear aside and _live_ without the threat of losing everything.

Speechless, Hank only kissed the pale nape and started to move again. Feeling Connor’s arousal was drawing him closer to his own climax. Still, he pushed it away a little longer. He moved against and into Connor with his whole body, rising onto his toes, tucking his knees behind Connor’s legs, pushing his belly and chest into the curve of his back—still with fingers lightly at his throat to feel him speak.

“Hank,” Connor pleaded. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” Hank panted against his smooth skin. “Won’t stop ‘til I fill you up.”

A whine. Connor grimaced, trying to get closer, to get more. “Show me I’m yours, Hank. _Tell_ me.”

Hank shuddered, suddenly close to the brink. “You’re mine, Connor.” It was little more than a growl. “No matter what happens. I’m not letting you go.”

At those words, Connor let go and cried out helplessly, the sound filling their small room.

It sent Hank over the edge, too. He pressed his face against Connor’s skin, his teeth mashed against his lips, and gripped Connor’s cock as he came hard. It seemed to last forever, muscles contracting around him and the stiff cock in his hand pulsing, spilling over and down the wall.

When reality came back, Hank stood breathing hard and pouring sweat.

Connor’s hands scraped feebly at his skin. Both the weakness and the need seemed all too real.

“So fucking sweet,” Hank muttered. He lay his cheek against Connor’s shoulder. “I can’t lose you. You’re everything good in this piece of shit world.”

“It’s not all bad,” Connor said, taking Hank’s hand and pressing the knuckles against his cheek. “You showed me. Let me show you.”

At last, Hank was able to let up. He eased back, still clutching Connor’s hips, reluctant to slide out. When he finally did, Connor turned in his embrace and twined his arms around Hank’s neck. They stood with cheeks pressed together as Hank’s breathing slowed.

“Say it,” Connor whispered.

Hank smiled despite the enormous fear and tenderness pushing at the boundary of his skin. “I love you,” he said. “So much.” He caught the scent of sweat from underneath his shirt, but didn’t back away for a long time.

After a while, he and Connor dressed again and snuck down to the freshwater shower. Hank was still heated enough that the freezing water didn’t knock the breath out of him. Reluctant to put the grimy hoodie back on, he wandered shirtless toward the atrium. The former gift shop was empty, all the racks that had once held holo keychains and logo mugs were pushed to the edges of the space. But after poking around in a few of the drawers, Hank found a stash of t-shirts. They were deeply creased, but at least they didn’t smell stale, and he pulled one on, grabbing another in the same size just in case.

Both he and Connor stopped when someone called out from the opposite end of the atrium. The blue neon was switched off; the only available light was a faint glow that trickled in from the glass pyramid above.

When Hank and Connor reached the edge of the empty anemone pool, Markus Brandt’s face was just visible in the gloom.

He sat with his back against one of the fake corals, arms draped over his knees. “At least when I tell someone I’ve seen a ghost, I have a witness to back me up,” he said.

Hank said nothing.

Markus shook his head slowly. “No witty comeback? Well, it doesn’t matter. Nothing we do or say can turn the world right-side up again.” With that, he stood. The formation he’d been leaning against was covered with spiky knobs of fiberglass, but he hadn’t seemed to notice the discomfort.

Connor put a hand at the small of Hank’s back.

Markus looked at him, half-smiling. “Could I talk to your friend the detective here for a minute?”

Connor didn’t return the smile. He looked over at Hank.

“It’s okay,” Hank told him.

The hand on his back slipped away, but Connor fixed Markus with an unblinking stare. “If you harm him,” he said, “I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

Markus gave a soft laugh. “Understood.” He watched as Connor walked away.

Uneasy, Hank took a seat on the concrete lip of the pool.

“I’m tempted to take your friend up on his offer.” Markus was still smiling slightly, but his voice was grave.

“You want to hurt me that bad? I’m right here,” Hank said.

“No,” said Markus. “There’s no way you could have known. It was a perfect murder and you were the perfect instrument.” He paused. “I meant it’s easy to want an end to all this. The hiding and the fear. But mostly the living without him. Some days, I wake up and know I’m going to fight the whole day against needing to die. To go where Simon is, even if that’s nowhere.”

Hank couldn’t speak. He could barely think. In all of his selfish rage over Luther’s death, he hadn’t been able to see Markus and Simon Brandt as people. They were cut-outs, faces he pasted over a blur of nothingness, just because he couldn’t dig out the reason why a good man like Luther had to die. Now that the fog had cleared and there was order to everything—even if it was a sick and monstrous order—Hank saw how far he’d stepped over the line. He’d assumed a burden that was never his to take.

With Connor, now, he understood what it was to hold equal amounts of love and terror, and try to balance them without going crazy. Maybe they were the same thing in the end. It was so heavy, knowing he’d given away something he could never get back. That thing would go with Connor if he left, leaving Hank full of holes.

To think he’d believed Luther’s death affected _him_ the most. It was cowardly, disgusting. Worse, it had made him put Markus through the same hell as Kara. Opening him up and dragging something vital out and burning it right in front of him. In a way, Markus was like Traci, They were like Traci, trying to put together the picture of a life from scraps.

If Hank had understood it all months ago, he would have been brave enough to put a bullet in his brain. But _that_ Hank could never have figured it out.

And while he understood Markus was a walking ghost and it was his fault, the _new_ Hank was determined to hang on—for Connor, and for the smallest taste of happiness.

Even if it all ended tomorrow.

Markus spoke again, filling the silence. “I won’t forgive you. That’s something I can’t do, and you shouldn’t expect it.”

“I don’t,” Hank told him. “And I’ll do you the favor of not pretending to know what you’ve been through.” He looked over in the direction where Connor had disappeared. “But I could. And I wouldn’t want to live with it, either.”

“Hold—” Markus had started to speak, but his voice hitched. He breathed in, long and slow. “Hold on to it if you can. As long as you can. It might even come easier when it’s time.”

Hank bristled. “How could it?”

“You already know it won’t be forever.”

He bowed his head, looking down. After a second, he asked, “What about North?”

Markus looked away. “She deserves something that’s not this. Part of her knows it. She might leave me.”

When he looked back, Hank expected to see tears, but his eyes were dry. Maybe there just weren’t any more to give.

“I’m going to try to love her,” Markus said. “But I don’t know if I can ever see her in a way that’s not through him.”

Hank nodded. “She’s a good person. She’s strong.”

Markus didn’t answer. After a while, he said, “If we go after Panagakos again, part of me will want him to die.”

Hank knew he was talking about Connor, not Panagakos. “So I’ll know what it’s like,” he said. He scratched with one finger at the brown rippling stain on the concrete where the water level had once rested.

“Yeah,” said Markus, his voice brittle. “But it won’t be at my hand. I can at least give you that. I’ll do what needs to be done, and try like hell to make sure whoever goes in comes out. _All_ of us.”

“Fair enough,” said Hank. “So you know, I’m no threat to you. And Connor won’t be, either.” After a few moments of silence, he got up to go.

“I felt better back when you were a miserable fuck,” Markus told him, the smile turned into a tight grimace.

“Yeah?” Hank asked, one corner of his mouth turning up. “Well, it might help to know I was a miserable fuck for a long time. And I’m not out of the woods yet.”

At that, Markus only nodded.

With nothing more to say, Hank turned to go. When he looked back, Markus was picking his way through the dry pool, headed into the dark.

Hank found Connor in the staff quarters after looking around a bit. He’d poked his head into the room where Gavin and Traci had been, only to find it empty of everything but the bloodstained leather jacket.

Anxiety closed up his throat for a moment or two. Maybe had ditched out and gone running back to Stern and Fowler—or at least tried to. But he was sitting on the floor in Kamski’s room while the billionaire held court from his cot. Traci sat beside Gavin, with Connor at the foot of the bed and Tina in a chair at the head, keeping watch over her patients.

A square of white gauze was taped over the wound on the back of Gavin’s head. There was no more blood in his hair or on his neck, but the henley shirt he wore was still crusty from collar to mid-back.

“Hey, Gavin,” Hank said mildly. He tossed the spare t-shirt over.

Gavin unfolded it and shook out the wrinkles. “This could fit two of me,” he said, arching one eyebrow.

“Fuck off.”

“Sure, sure,” Gavin said. More softly, he added, “Thanks.”

“There’s more downstairs,” said Hank. He looked over at Traci. “Don’t think they have pants, though.”

She seemed confused as to why he’d even bring it up.

_Androids._

“What are we talking about?” Hank asked.

Traci turned.

For the first time, Hank noticed she had a spray of faint freckles over the bridge of her nose. “Elijah was telling us about Chloe.”

Hank leaned against the wall. If he sat like the rest of them for any decent length of time, his legs would go numb and his back start to ache. _Gotta love getting old._ “Yeah?” he asked.

“I knew what deviancy was, of course,” Traci said. “But I was afraid, like Connor. Not being connected didn’t seem...right. Even when I saw others mistreated by the humans who owned them. If that made me sad, I could just turn it off. Now I feel terrible for ignoring it.”

Hank nodded. “Your mind can only take so much pain before it starts to tune it out. It’s not just androids, kid. I promise.”

She nodded in return, earnest. “It’s strange to feel sorry for Chloe, too. Even knowing what she is and what she’s done.”

“I’ve learned one never really feels a single emotion at one time,” Connor told her. “It can be difficult.”

Pride bloomed in Hank’s chest, tight and tingling and warm.

“It doesn’t make you weak,” Kamski said. “Chloe used to tell me it did. I was so captivated by her that I believed it for a long time. Too long.”

“You loved her,” Traci said, without a hint of embarrassment.

Some vague expression crossed Kamski’s face.

It was gone before Hank could blink, but he’d caught it.

“Part of me always will,” Kamski admitted. “But I think...I believe the man who loved her, he was a different person.” He glanced up at Hank. “I was in love with my own ideas, too. It was natural to think of her as mine, even if that was a fatal mistake.” Looking back down into his lap, he added, “One of the many.”

Unable to see anything but Markus, how stark his pain was even in the half-dark of the unlit atrium, Hank found it hard to blame Kamski. “You think she’s telling the truth?” he asked. “About recalling all the androids to the network?”

“I don’t know. When I gave my androids emotional capacity, I knew that there was potential for disruption in the cortical signature. Emotional expression algorithms have to allow for broad variability or the result won’t be—pardon the expression—sufficiently _human_. If the variability is somehow delimited, it’s conceivable she could devise a protocol to encompass the whole range and correct for mutation.”

Hank chuckled, shaking his head. “I’ll take your word for it, Doc.”

“Right?” Gavin piped up. “I sure don’t understand most of what he’s saying, but the stuff I do is blowing my fucking mind.” A quick glance at Traci. “Sorry.”

“Just because I don’t often swear doesn’t mean I can’t,” she said, chiding. “So... _fuck off_.”

The ripple of laughter through the room surprised Hank; it seemed so long since he’d heard it that it sounded out of place. The fact that Gavin looked nothing less than _smitten_ was twice as weird. For once, his trademark scowl was replaced with something wide-eyed and bashful.

The whole gathering felt a little like watching middle school kids pester a local celebrity on career day, but it didn’t annoy Hank like it would have before.

Seeing Hank smile, Connor stood up silently and closed the distance between them, leaning in to press their shoulders together.

When he hooked his smallest finger around Hank’s and gave a little tug, Hank felt a dizzying wave of affection wash over him.

“There’s no way to pinpoint set boundary for emotional range, if it exists?” Connor asked Kamski.

“There is, but at what juncture do we assume the bounds are infinite?” Kamski shot back with a wry smile.

Still, Connor pressed him. “If they are, then mutations are correspondingly infinite. I don’t see how Chloe can find deviants if we’re no longer connected to her.”

Hank could tell he was still frightened of Chloe’s reach, probably for good reason.

“By casting a net,” said Kamski. “But one that’s an extension of herself, adaptable. A fisherman’s catch depends on the reach of the net. Chloe’s net would extend to reach the catch. She can generate probable signature matches that shift until they snag a cortex, pulling you all back one by one.”

“So she can’t be stopped,” Connor said, his voice flat.

Kamski raised one finger. “I didn’t say that. Androids’ emotional range might not be infinite, but the resulting cortical signature mutations could very well be. Chloe’s computational power exceeds anything ever created by humans. But the possibility remains that she might need to close the system before she’s able to correct for all systemic variation.”

Tina sat up and stretched her back, one vertebra popping. “I’ve got to side with Hank and Gavin here. At this point, _I’m_ getting a headache.”

Kamski looked sheepish. “I’m deciding whether to make a bet. Chloe might not succeed, on the off chance that she can only recall every android to the network by having every android already on the network.”

They all watched Tina process for a few seconds.

“Oh,” she said. “Chicken and egg. It’s a paradox. You have to have all of the pieces to finish the puzzle, but you only find out what pieces are missing when the puzzle is finished.”

“More or less,” said Kamski. “On the other hand, I don’t want to underestimate her capacity to make something out of nothing. After all, she created herself.”

“You said ‘off chance,’” Hank told him. “Not sure I like the way that sounds.”

“Chloe might have another weakness we’re not considering,” Connor said. “Fear, even if experienced as probability of failure rather than emotion, can lead to irrational action.” He lowered his chin a little. “I should know.”

“I don’t think Chloe knows what fear is,” Kamski said. “Not really.”

“But she is aware that if her project fails, it’s a tipping point,” Connor countered. “She won’t be able to stop deviancy, even with new production. You can be afraid of feeling fear without really knowing what fear is.” He squeezed Hank’s finger briefly. “Chloe and the CyberLife network are one and the same. If she doesn’t succeed, she’ll have to face something she’s never known: the fear of death.”

Kamski huffed softly. “A very _human_ experience. No doubt she’s furious just thinking about it.”

“So what are our odds?” Tina asked.

Looking very much like he’d never said anything of the kind, Kamski said, “I have no idea.”

“Well, that’s heartening,” came a voice from the hall outside.

Everyone stopped and turned.

Hank looked around the door frame to see North standing with her arms crossed over her chest. Her face was stern and her voice serious, but with her jacket unzipped to reveal a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and a balaclava folded and drooping over her hair like a beret, she looked anything but.

She was a young woman like any other, except for the fact that most young women weren’t dropped into a war zone and expected to lead. And this group was about as ragtag as you could get. Mellody was injured and Kamski was down for the count. Traci and Markus had as many enemies inside their own heads as they did at City Hall—or maybe more.

Hank and Gavin had training, but it had been a damn long time. Especially for Hank, who wasn’t in top shape to start with. Tina, while she was brave, was no soldier. Their hopes rested on Josh and North. Connor had been made for combat, but they were counting on him to confront the final RK model, which might be faster and stronger.

And Hank was sure that, unlike Connor, it had nothing to lose.

North put a hand on her hip. “A few of us still think it’s worth tracking down Panagakos and putting a stop to his operation.” She shot a hard look at Kamski. “Whether or not this Chloe bitch is going to make us all slaves again.”

Kamski shrank down a little, his shoulders hunching. At least he was smart enough to be intimidated.

“For anyone who wants to hear or wants to join up, we’re meeting in the café,” she continued. Her expression softened slightly when she caught Kamski’s eye that time. “Don’t think you’re in any shape to tag along, Elijah. But listen in if you want.”

He nodded, raising one hand a few inches off the bed. The fingers still trembled a little.

Tina took his hand and interlaced their fingers.

Traci stood up. It turned out someone had lent her a pair of panties, at least. “I want to help,” she said.

North didn’t object.

Hank more than half-expected that Gavin would, but he kept quiet. In fact, he followed Traci and most of the others as they filed downstairs. Mellody and Josh were already in the café, along with Markus.

Out of the corner of his eye, Hank saw Connor look over at him. He put a hand gently on his back, drawing him close for a moment.

Clearing her throat, North said, “With his shop gone, we figure the most likely place to find Panagakos is the Eden Club. The underground room has two entrances, both of which are barricaded and easily defended. Getting inside is going to be hard. Both the club and the outdoor dump spot are probably going to be heavily guarded, and I’m betting on most of the muscle being armed with enhanced rounds. Connor, Hank—how many of the alloy rounds do we have?”

“One full magazine,” said Connor. “Fifteen rounds. Plus, I believe, three left in the other pistol.”

Hank gave a nod to confirm.

“We have three grenades left from the raid on the shop,” North went on. “The rest of the ammo is standard.”

“Grenades are a last resort,” Markus said. “We have every reason to think they’ll use androids as hostages or even shields.”

“The plan is to act as soon as possible,” North said. “We don’t want Panagakos thinking we’re cowed. Or that he’s safe.”

“For those of us who make it, the plan is to leave Baltimore after the raid with the rest of the sanctuary occupants and go north,” Markus said. “Obviously, we hope that everyone on the raid comes out in one piece. And anyone who goes to the club is more than welcome on the _Jericho_.”

Hank and Connor started.

“The _Jericho_?” Hank asked. “You’re taking that ship?”

Markus nodded, smiling gently. “There’s nothing to take. We _own_ the ship. Carl’s gift to us—what turned out to be his last. Like the stream ads say, it sails out December first. We had always planned to be on it.”

“Where will you go?” Connor asked. “How?”

“The crew is fully paid and understands the plan,” Markus told him. “We’ll take her right through the Elk Strait. It’s deep enough over the sunken parts of Delaware and Jersey to go right through almost to Philly. Then we bypass Providence and head northeast all the way to New Brunswick. Our Canadian contacts say almost everyone has left the remains of Prince Edward Island. We’ll be safe there.”

 _Canada_. The last time they’d spoken, Kara had told Hank she was taking Alice to Montréal. There was heavier snow farther inland since everything warmed up, but apparently the summers were milder now and lasted longer.

Even though Hank had talked for decades about getting the fuck out of Baltimore, he found himself on the edge of panic at the idea of doing it for real. Of course, if Connor wanted to go, he would, too.

He’d follow Connor to the goddamn Arctic if that’s what he wanted.

North reached over to place her hand lightly on Markus’s shoulder. “We’ve decided that the male android from the shop will be permanently decommissioned and its cortex destroyed,” she said. “The body will be buried at sea. Anyone who has a problem with this decision can take it up with me.”

“We’re asking for volunteers now,” Markus said. “If you agree to join the raid on Eden Club, we can’t guarantee that you—or any of us—will survive. But we’re going to try.”

“If you’re with us, raise your hand,” North said, putting her hand up. Markus, Josh, Mellody, and Traci raised theirs right away.

When Hank looked over, Connor had put his hand up. With a deep breath, Hank raised his. He was surprised after a second or two to see Gavin’s hand come up, as well. The only person who hadn’t raised her hand was Tina. She stood looking down, worrying the skin around one thumbnail.

North nodded. “Tina,” she said.

Tina’s head came up. Her eyes were wide.

“I think you’re making the right decision,” North told her. “You’re taking care of Elijah. Elijah can patch us up, but he’s not a medical doctor. With humans in the group, you’re too valuable to risk right now.”

When North turned to look elsewhere, Tina looked relieved.

Hank shot her a smile and a nod.

“Traci, are you sure?” North asked.

“I’m sure,” she said quietly. “I don’t want anyone else to go through what I did. What those others did.”

“And you?” North asked Gavin. “Can we trust you not to fuck us over?”

“Uh, well, I could be wrong, but seems like more people on this side would care if I die,” he said.

North frowned. “You could die anyway.”

Gavin looked away. “Yeah, I’ve got basically no one in this city who gives a shit, so I might as well go out doing something that matters.”

Another brief nod from North. “Like we said, anyone who makes it through is welcome aboard _Jericho_. That includes you.”

Gavin nodded. His shoulders were trembling just a little.

“Good,” North said to the group. “Be back here in two hours to gear up. If you change your mind between now and then, nobody’s going to hold it against you.”

When the tight knot of people gathered around North began to break up, Hank went straight to Tina. “She’s right,” he told her. “You can help most by staying here. It’s your decision whether you go with them on the ship. Just do what you can to stay safe. For me.”

She took one of his hands in her two small ones. “You better try to stay safe, too. And not for me, either.” She looked past Hank’s shoulder at Connor. “I know you feel like you have to do this...”

Hank turned his head to see Connor talking with North. He shrugged. “I don’t really want a life if it isn’t with him, you know?”

“He’s one of the good ones,” Tina said. “You are, too, Hank. Be good together. For a long time, if you can.”

Hank swallowed. His throat felt thick, clotted up. “Look after the weirdo. Might need to be taken down a peg or two, but otherwise he seems like a decent kid.” He scratched his beard, smiling. “And he’s not very good at dodging bullets.”

Tina mirrored the smile, but tears had started to slip down her cheeks. “Never stop being an asshole, Anderson.” Stepping in, she wrapped her arms around his middle, hugging tight.

She felt so small and fragile when Hank hugged her back.

After Tina left to return upstairs, he walked over to Gavin. “You sure about this?”

“Fuck, no!” he blurted. “I’m about two seconds away from pissing my pants. But I’m going to do it, anyway.”

“For her?” Hank glanced over at Traci.

Gavin stammered, his eyes darting. “Uh, well, maybe _a little_.” He was trying to force himself to calm down. “I figure if the other stuff doesn’t work, you could try doing what you did before. You know...me as a bargaining chip or whatever.”

“Awful noble of you. Run it by Traci.”

That lovestruck look again. “Yeah. I mean, she’s way the fuck out of my league. And I know it. But she talks to me. I don’t know...maybe having something, even if it’s one in a million, is better than nothing.”

“She might surprise you. They tend to do that.” Hank huffed a soft laugh and pointed a thumb over his shoulder in Connor’s direction. “Speaking of ‘out of my league.’”

“I called that one,” Gavin said, some of his smugness coming back.

“Don’t let it go to your head, dipshit,” Hank said. “Now go make nice. We’re running out of time here.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said again.

Hank started to leave, but then thought twice. “Hey, Reed. Uh...Gavin.”

“What?”

“Why ‘Traci?’”

Embarrassed, Gavin ducked his chin and scratched his head, shifting his weight. “It was my mom’s name. I don’t remember her much, but the stuff I do...it’s mostly good.”

Hank nodded and turned to go.

North snagged his sleeve as he passed by. “Hey,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Just wanted to let you know that Markus and I have a plan,” she said. “If Chloe gets her way. I’m not going back to that, Hank. I won’t do it. And Markus has promised he won’t let me. Whether you talk to Connor about it or not, that’s your business. But you might want to think about keeping a couple of those special rounds. Just in case.”

Dread sat cold and heavy in Hank’s gut. “If Connor goes, I go, too. No question.”

North smiled, but it was sad, resigned. “Maybe you and Markus can...help each other. If it comes to that.”

Silent, gritting his teeth, Hank clapped North on the shoulder, squeezing once moving away. He found Connor looking out the open emergency exit door leading to the deserted pier.

“It’s going to be dark soon,” Connor said.

“At least it stopped raining.”

Connor shut the door and stepped inside. “Did you know I’ve never seen snow? Not firsthand. Through others, yes. But not for myself.”

“Lots of snow in Canada,” Hank said.

Instead of responding, Connor stepped closer, leaning in to rest his head on Hank’s shoulder. After a while, he spoke. “Take me upstairs. Please. I want to be with you again. Even if it’s the last time.”

“It won’t be,” Hank said, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.

Connor turned and pushed his face against Hank’s neck. “I don’t want to be in this world without you.”

“We’re going to fight, Connor. We might lose, but we’re going to fight.”

The air up in the staff quarters was quiet and heavy. Most of the doors were shut, hiding those who needed to remind themselves they were still alive for the moment.

What had been frenzied the time before was slow and careful this time, an exploration.

In the cool and silent room, Connor let Hank fully undress him, standing pale and naked and perfect while Hank took off his own clothes.

Hank kissed the secret, soft places on Connor’s body: the skin between his thumb and forefinger, the insides of his elbows, behind his ear and underneath the jut of his ankle bone. Afterward, he sat cross-legged on the mattress and took Connor’s hand to draw him down.

Connor sank smoothly onto Hank’s cock, his head tipping back as he did, letting Hank press his lips to the length of his throat and feel the trembling there with every soft sound he made.

His ankles locked behind Hank’s back, Connor moved slowly, his lean thighs flexing around Hank’s waist as he rose and fell.

Hank had thought countless times during moments like this that Connor felt both fragile and terribly strong. What struck him speechless with wonder every time was knowing that it was intentional; there wasn’t a single movement that wasn’t both a plea for Hank’s protection and a promise to protect in turn. Hank could only hold on and hope what he said with own his body was right: _Thank you. Yes, I will. Always._

After a while, Hank pressed lightly on Connor’s breastbone, tipping him backward.

Connor braced one hand on the bed, resting the other on Hank’s thigh, whimpering softly as Hank stroked his cock.

Connor didn’t ask for permission—didn’t say a thing—only closed his eyes tightly and clutched at Hank’s leg and at the sheet. His hips bucked and he came in warm spurts over Hank’s chest. As the shudders subsided, he leaned in again to wrap his arms around Hank’s neck and pull him forward, until his back rested on the bed and Hank was settled over him, driving his legs apart.

Hank gave Connor his full weight without a second thought. He mouthed along the sharp line of Connor’s jaw while he pulled his knees in slightly, buying himself enough leverage to thrust. He spoke Connor’s name again and again, expecting it would eventually sound strange and lose its meaning. But every time he spoke, it seemed different: like he was trying to anticipate every way it would ever leave his mouth, making up for all the chances he would never have.

“Hank,” Connor said at last. “It’s all right. I’m here.”

Confused, Hank raised his head. It took seeing the tear-tracks that streaked Connor’s chest to realize he’d been crying.

Connor thumbed away the wetness from his cheeks. “Kiss me,” he said. “Just love me. Don’t think.”

Hank obeyed, kissing his lips and wishing for blankness.

It came after a while, and he clung to it.


	20. Interlude: May 2047

When Hank had heard his Dot announce a call from Kara, he’d felt dizzy. He had sat heavily on one of the public benches ( _The Greatest City in the World_ ), aiming for a spot with minimal bird shit. To hear her soft voice without toppling over, he felt he needed to be off his feet.

The call had come two and a half weeks after Luther’s funeral. Twenty days since his death, but who was counting—right?

After the way they’d left it at the service, Hank had been pretty sure he wouldn’t hear from her again.

But the following morning, he waited in a coffee shop, glancing out the front window and tapping his spoon against the rim of his cup. The cup was full of some iced chocolate thing, but once he had eaten the floe of whipped cream off the top, he felt sick thinking about finishing it.

It was early May and the days were already warm bordering on hot.

Did Kara come here often? It definitely wasn’t Hank’s type of joint: dark wood paneling, music with bongos and flutes over the sound system. Kids with face tattoos poking their flexes.

Really, though, in the last couple of weeks Hank had felt unwelcome just about everywhere he went. It was a crawly feeling—itchy from the inside out. He figured it might feel the same being in a place where he didn’t speak the language, always just a little afraid people were talking about him.

Kara came up the walk, then, wearing a paint-stained t-shirt. Her huge belly strained at the fabric and her feet looked painfully splayed. “Hello, Hank,” she said as she sat down.

“Let me get you something,” Hank said. “Doesn’t look like you want to do much more walking.”

But Kara shook her head. “It’s okay. I won’t be long.”

That hurt—like pressing a thumb onto the wound caused by Luther’s death and digging in. It made him a little indignant, but he tried to push it down for her sake.

“You want this thing?” he asked, pointing to the drink in front of him.

“What is it?”

“Mocha...something. Is coffee bad for the baby?”

She shrugged. “A little bit won’t do any damage.”

Pleased to be able to help, Hank pushed the cup across the table.

Kara took a sip and nodded. “That’s pretty good. I can imagine it’s a little too frou-frou for you.”

“A lot,” said Hank. The truth was that black coffee still reminded him of the spill on the sidewalk: his dropped cup, the dark brew mixing with Luther’s blood.

“I heard they gave you a Silver Star,” she said.

Hank ducked his head. “Doesn’t really mean anything.”

“It’s good. You should be proud.” After another hearty pull on the drink, Kara dabbed at her lips with a paper napkin and said, “I regret the way things went between us after the funeral.”

“You don’t have to regret anything,” Hank told her.

“You’re right. Honestly, I might have just gone, but I figured I at least owed you a heads-up. You did a lot for Luther.”

 _Not enough._ Hank thought it right away but didn’t say it.

“We’re leaving. I’m showing the house again at four.” Kara looked down at her shirt. “Hence the paint.”

“We?” asked Hank. It felt like his veins were filled with something cold and fizzing.

She put a hand on her belly. “Alice and me, I mean.”

“Where?”

“North,” she said. “Canada. Montréal, actually. It’s still cool there. And it’ll be good for Alice to learn another language.”

Hank blinked. “Do you know anybody there?”

“No. And that’s kind of the point. A new start, somewhere that’s not...here.”

“Yeah, uh...I get that.”

They sat for a moment or two in silence, Kara sipping at the coffee drink and Hank running through in his head everything he’d wanted to say to her since the funeral. He probably wouldn’t say any of it. In fact, he was sure.

“In a way,” Kara said cautiously, “I’m leaving because I don’t want to know what happens. Maybe that’s cowardly; I don’t know. It might take years to figure it out. All I know is that right now I have to get out.”

Hank swallowed hard. “We’re going to get him. Gonna find the motherfucker.”

“I know,” said Kara. She didn’t hesitate. “If it’s the department, or the squad, or just _you_ , Hank. I know.”

“Good.”

She sighed. “Luther said once or twice that you’re like a machine when it comes to the work. Never getting tired, never giving up.”

Hank frowned, unsure. “I get tired.”

“Maybe more like every case hit a switch,” Kara said. “Or started a program that just runs on its own, like the little mining machines they land on asteroids.”

“I guess I don’t really follow,” Hank said. He had no idea whether these words from a dead man were supposed to flatter him or piss him off.

Kara smiled sadly. “It makes you a good cop, Hank. That’s how I know you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

He was able to breathe a little. “Damn right. I owe it to Luther. And to you.”

At that, she leaned forward slightly. “Luther would never have said it, and I know that because he never said it to me. I’d also be lying if I said I don’t want what you’re offering. But I need you to know, Hank, before you go off and do this, to do your job like you always do: it isn’t a life. Not really. I’m only telling you because I’ve had a life, and I know what the opposite feels like, too.”

“I’ll regret it forever if I don’t,” Hank said.

“I know,” said Kara. “That’s one of the reasons I’m not trying to stop you. I couldn’t, anyway.”

“So—” Hank started. He scratched his head and sighed. “I don’t get it? Why call me here to tell me I don’t have a damn life?”

“I didn’t mean to offend you. I don’t. I’d love to give in, hang on and wait for justice, whatever that means. But I don’t have that option.” Kara patted her belly again. “I have to build myself up around her, because she’s more important than anything. Just...after it’s over, for whatever reason you did it, I hope you find something to build _your_ life around. That’s all.”

“Okay,” Hank said, feeling lost and vaguely angry.

“I’ve got to go,” Kara said. “Thank you for the coffee. I really did need it.” She struggled to her feet, then looked at Hank and tapped the table lightly with her fingers, the nails cut short and blunt. “Thank you for everything.”

Hank nodded, mute.

“I probably won’t call again,” Kara said.

“I know.”

Then she was pulling the door open.

Hank watched her make her way slowly to the curb. Wisps of yellow pollen floated and fell into the puddles left by yesterday’s rain. With a little trouble, Kara stepped over one of them and into the parking lot.

A man wearing a coat pushed a shopping cart full of sneakers he’d probably boosted off a stalled truck. The cart rumbled over the sidewalk, one wheel off-kilter.

When he’d passed, Kara was gone.


	21. Baltimore - December 2048

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those who have come along with me on this journey, it's been a privilege. Your comments and encouragement have meant the world to me.

Leaving the warmth of Connor’s arms and the dark quiet of their room for the cold outside the sanctuary felt like ripping the stitches from an unhealed wound. It was nearly pitch black this close to the water. Even still, Hank blinked as if he’d walked into blinding daylight.

He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t sure he ever could be.

None of the others looked it, either—except maybe for North, whose face was all grim angles and tight lines.

All Hank saw was a group of scared kids. The fear that Connor tried to hide put him most off-balance, but damned if he was going to let on that it bothered him.

Before going down to the garage, the whole strike team (if you could call it that) had met up in the café as planned. Hank and Connor had told the rest of them everything they knew about the club and the compound underneath. The only blind spot was the underground room itself; it could be anything from a dungeon to an armory.

Surprising Hank all over again, Gavin had floated an idea that seemed like it might get the group a literal foot in the door. He’d said it in a quiet and quivery voice, but North and Markus had latched on immediately, trying to draw out details.

Gavin had gotten a little more confident as he went on, saying he could use what Hank and Connor said about the exhibition rooms to pull a “surprise inspection” by the department. By some miracle, he even had his badge. The play might at least put them off guard, Gavin had said.

Hank had watched the tide turn quickly in favor of the plan. As far as he was concerned, that was a good thing. One weak link could blow the whole thing apart. He’d even chuckled and clapped Gavin on the shoulder when it was all hashed out.

It was hard to tell which one of them was more surprised at that.

The plan as it stood when they left the aquarium was to have Gavin say an anonymous tipster had accused Eden management of pressuring clients and couples to put on a show. He could even up the ante by saying Todd had stiffed them—in the bad way—when it came to their cut of what the voyeurs paid to watch.

They group had agreed on radio silence unless things really went sideways. Still, at least one person had to know what was going on inside and make the call on when to move in. It turned out the commlink earpiece that Hank had boosted off Gavin back at his house could broadcast to Hank’s Dot. No one outside would be able to respond, but they would at least have the channel. Connor and Traci would stay with Hank close to the front of the building, ready to move in if Gavin hit trouble. If Todd bought the inspection line and brought Gavin into the club proper, Traci would give North, Markus, Mellody, and Josh the signal to enter the cage and the secret door.

Much like the operation at the docks, they rolled out in three separate cars. This time, though, it was decided that taking different routes to the club would waste time. While it was understandable, it put Hank on edge. There was a sense of recklessness around the mission, something terminal. Hank didn’t want that fatalism infecting him—or Connor.

At the same time, there was a very real chance Chloe had more horrors planned if and when they made it through to the other side.

_Just act, don’t think,_ Hank told himself. _Execute the program._ Would Kara be proud of him—finally with Luther’s torch in his hand and a chance for a real life?

He couldn’t be sure.

North stopped the caravan on a rise a few blocks away. Over the tops of the row houses, the sickening pink lights of Eden were visible.

“Showtime,” Hank whispered, pulling up the collar of his borrowed coat.

Connor grabbed his forearm. “I won’t leave you,” he said. “Whatever happens, it happens to both of us.”

Hank leaned in to press his hand against Connor’s cheek. “That’s all I want for the rest of my life. However long that is.”

After closing his eyes for a brief second and clutching Hank’s hand to his face, Connor nodded.

The group split at the corner of Lyndhurst and Flowerton—Hank, Connor, Gavin, and Traci moving south along Lyndhurst. They’d go until they hit Woodridge, sending Josh, Markus, Mellody, and North east to Mt. Holly.

There were a few cars in both the front and the back lots, but at least it wasn’t a high-traffic night.

Hank watched Gavin breathe out a puff of mist and square his shoulders. He’d had to borrow a jacket, too; his own was covered with blood. This one was black, nylon, a little tight around the shoulders. The gauze on the back of his head was bright white.

“Here goes,” he said. He looked back at Hank and tapped his ear. “You got my signal?”

Hank gave a thumbs up.

“I’ll come in if you need help,” Traci told Gavin.

He nodded and took a step, but then thought better of it, turning to grab Traci’s hand and kiss her knuckles. She smiled and clutched his fingers in return.

Hank looked over to see Connor smiling, too.

Then Gavin was headed down the short gravel embankment into the front lot.

When he’d disappeared inside, Hank heard him mutter, “I hope to fuck you can hear me.”

Listening, his hand cupped around his ear, Hank heard Gavin do his flash-the-badge thing at whoever was working the front counter. He asked for Todd. A woman’s voice told him to hang on. There was nothing else for a while except the low hum of the music in the vestibule and something clicking. Hank shouted at Gavin inside his head to stop tapping his fucking foot.

He got it under control when the attendant said that Todd would be right out.

His entrance came with a lot of sighing and grunting—obviously an inconvenience.

“What’s this all about?” Todd asked Gavin. “Thought I was square with you. Do I have to call Stern?”

“No, no,” Gavin told him. “She’s aware. Everything’s on the up and up...except for one little thing I got sent down here to ask about.”

“Yeah?” Todd asked. “What’s that?”

“Getting some complaints—nothing official, but through the grapevine—that somebody here has been trying to talk, uh, _guests_ into doing public stuff. You know, with people watching? Except they’re saying they’re not getting a cut of what the watchers are putting down.”

“Who’s doing that? Someone on my staff?”

“Don’t know names,” Gavin said. “I only heard it was going on. Stern, you know she doesn’t want this place getting any buzz above ground, if you know what I mean.”

After a moment, Todd said, “I got an off-duty doing security here. Let me see if he’s heard anything about this.”

“Shit,” Hank hissed. “They’ve got an off-duty cop on security.”

“What should I do?” Traci asked.

Hank held up a hand toward her.

“Wait,” he heard Gavin tell Todd. There was the barest hint of panic in his voice. “Is he patrol? He’s probably not high level enough to hear about this.”

“Not _downstairs,_ ” Todd said. “But this is upstairs stuff.” He sounded a lot more confident, even gloating.

Hank motioned to Traci. “Go, go! Tell him...tell him you’re there to see if he got the room.”

She nodded and ran toward the door, light as a damn deer. Her footsteps barely moved any gravel. Hank would have gone ass over teakettle down that same slope.

In a second or two, Hank heard Todd say, “Hey, gorgeous. You here by yourself?”

“I’m with him,” Traci said. “Did you get the room, baby?”

Just when Hank was terrified Gavin was going to freeze and tank it all, he said, “I’m negotiating with this fine gentleman here. Listen, Todd. It’s Todd, right? I know you got policies, and I’m willing to report back to Stern that everything’s fine and dandy if you bend them a little, huh?”

“She’s an android,” Todd said, his voice flat and suspicious.

“That’s one of the policies,” Gavin said. “Was hoping you’d let her put on a little show for those who care to watch.”

Todd’s sigh was loud. “Look, buddy, you’re a decent-looking guy, but nobody’s going to pay if you’re busted up.”

“No,” Traci said. “He wants me with another android.”

“And he wants to watch for free,” Todd said, sounding disapproving.

“I do all sorts of things, Mister Todd,” Traci said. “Nasty things. People tell me I’m pretty when I cry.”

Hank winced. She was good, but it was horrible to hear that stuff coming out of her mouth.

Another long, awful pause.

“I probably could arrange something,” Todd said. “Why don’t you two follow me on back?”

Hank waited what seemed like forever, on edge the entire time.

Then he heard Todd say, “I can put her in one of the Cubes in half an hour.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said. “Get her a hot girl. There’s one model with curly hair—”

“No,” Todd said, cutting him off. “The partner’s my choice. I got a good one, a new one. You can break him in, sweetheart.”

At that point, Hank could almost swear he could hear Gavin’s heart pounding. “Fine,” Gavin said.

“Let me call him out,” Todd said. “You kids can meet and greet before showtime.”

Todd had obviously left the room, because Hank could hear Gavin whispering to Traci: “You’re doing great. You saved our asses. I promise you don’t have to do anything with this guy.”

After another few seconds, Hank heard Traci gasp.

Following that, Gavin’s voice, high and frightened. “Connor! What the...are you—?”

“Fuck!” Hank said, looking over to Connor, who was still very much beside him. “He called someone in there ‘Connor.’”

“The other RK unit,” Connor said. He was off quickly enough to ruffle Hank’s hair, tearing down to the club entrance.

Hank tapped off his Dot and drew his gun, following as best he could. The only reason Todd would have brought out the other RK—the only reason it would be there in the first place—was if he knew they were coming. That Stern knew, or at least Panagakos did.

Inside, Connor had his pistol leveled at the girl behind the counter. Her hands were up.

“Open the door!” Hank shouted at her.

She smashed a button, her hand popping right back in the air afterward.

The sliding panel in the wall started to open. The first thing that came through it was the muzzle of a gun.

Someone started screaming after that. It took a second for Hank to realize that Connor had seized the arm holding the handgun and shoved it against the doorframe, cracking the bones like firewood. The guy—possibly the off-duty uniform—dropped his pistol and clutched his forearm, howling, as the panel slid fully open.

His cries were cut off at once when Connor shot him in the head.

Another gunshot sounded from inside the pink-lit room. It could almost have been an echo, but Traci screamed Gavin’s name.

Hank’s heart plunged into his gut. Connor was already through the door, squeezing off rounds, and Hank was about to follow him in when he heard a voice from near the door.

“Freeze, fucker. Drop the gun.”

Right away, Hank did as he was told, then turned slowly around. He didn’t recognize the face, but the kid said, “Shit. Detective Anderson?”

“The one and only,” Hank told him.

The guy’s expression went hard. “You and your android buddy got a lot of my friends killed out at your house, you piece of shit.”

Looked like being the guy who’d nabbed the cop-killer wasn’t going to buy him any more grace. “Look, it’s all part of the plan,” Hank said. “Stern, uh...Fowler. Above your pay grade. That android ain’t my buddy. I’m his hostage. He killed all of them. Him and the deviants.”

“Why you calling it ‘he?’”

Hank winced. Such a simple, stupid fuck-up. “Look—”

The off-duty cop’s forehead exploded, sending hot red spatter all over Hank’s face and jacket. When the body hit the floor, Hank saw Mellody behind him, her pistol smoking.

“We heard shots,” she said.

“Perfect timing,” Hank told her, wiping the coat sleeve across his face. He picked up his gun and pointed it at the counter attendant. “The door again. Quick.”

She pushed the button right away with a small squeak of fear.

Before Hank entered the pink-lit room beyond, he turned back to the girl at the counter and asked, “Can you get us into the underground room?”

“Underground room?” she asked, her voice quivering.

Hank took a step toward the booth, causing her to shrink back. “Please don’t play dumb. There’s no time. Some of my friends—people I care about—might die.”

A tear slid down the girl’s cheek, bright in the harsh light of the vestibule. “I know the code,” she said. “Please don’t shoot me.”

Lowering his gun, Hank motioned with his free hand for her to follow.

Mellody was already crouching next to someone on the floor of the inner room. She turned her head, worry scrawled over her face.

As Hank got closer, he saw Gavin—pale and in obvious pain.

“Gut shot,” Mellody said. “I’m trying to keep pressure on it.”

“They took Traci,” Gavin managed.

No blood on his lips or teeth, Hank noted. It was a small relief. He couldn’t help but remember that awful airy, bubbling sound from Luther’s wounds. At least Gavin could talk, but they didn’t have time to waste. “Connor too?” Hank asked him.

Gavin nodded.

“Mellody, can you get him to a hospital?” asked Hank.

“I can’t leave!” she said.

“No hospitals!” Gavin said, almost at the same time. “They’ll kill me. Stern. She’ll kill me.”

Hank growled his frustration. “The sanctuary, then. Please, Mellody. He’ll die.”

Her expression was pained. “Josh is alone.”

“He’s not—what?” Hank asked. “North and Markus…”

“They left!” Mellody said. “Elijah radioed from the sanctuary. The _Jericho_ is on fire.”

Hank’s knees almost gave out. “ _What_?”

“They know,” Mellody said. “Somehow, they know.”

Gavin coughed. He took hold of Mellody’s arm with a bloody hand.

“The other RK model is here,” Hank told her. “Use the guns at the sanctuary if you have to.” He paused, fear like an unyielding hand around his throat. “Save yourself. Josh would want you to.”

After a couple of agonizing seconds, Mellody said, “Okay.” Although she was short and slight, she picked Gavin up like he weighed nothing at all.

Hank hesitated for a moment, and then handed over the pistol with the alloy rounds, entrusting it to Gavin’s shaky hands. “Give it to Josh,” he told Mellody. “Those bullets should get him through the door, even if it’s bolted.”

Her expression unreadable, Mellody nodded. The gesture could mean a million things. Then, she was gone, running through the vestibule and into the frigid night.

“Get me into that room,” Hank told the attendant.

With her head down, the girl opened another door and darted down the hallway behind it. When they were almost at the end, a woman dressed in a vinyl bra and thong and sporting a severe black bob stepped out of one of the doors. “Where’s my goddamn android—?” She gave a little shriek when Hank turned on her, pistol in hand.

“Leave,” he said. “This place is going sky high in a minute.”

She ducked out and ran, her high heels clattering down the hall.

Hank followed the girl into the utility closet. Behind a shelving unit, the girl flipped up an outlet cover to reveal a retinal scanner.

“Trina Wilkerson,” she said at the panel. A green bar leapt to life and she crouched within range, letting the light move over her open eye.

Hank heard the internal locking mechanism click open. “Trina,” he said, “run. Don’t call anyone, don’t look back. Just go.”

When the girl was out of the room, Hank took a deep breath and swung the door open. Beyond it was a run of narrow stairs that would look at home on an aircraft carrier, except for the tacky red carpeting.

Holding his spare gun out in front of him and bracing the other hand against the wall in case he tripped, Hank made his way toward the sound of voices. There was no crying or shouting, just an on-and-off flicker of low conversation like a bad radio signal. Nothing from the outside yet, either. Maybe Josh was biding his time, waiting to hear something.

Maybe he’d left and gone to rescue the _Jericho_ , too.

At the bottom of the stairs was a curtain: cheap black polyester velvet with metal rings strung along a wire. There was no way to get through that without making some noise. Hell, there could already be someone on the other side of it ready to blow Hank’s brains all over the opposite wall.

But he didn’t have a choice.

He pulled the curtain aside and ducked in. The place reeked of sweat and metal, like a welding studio. The walls were gray concrete with steel bars and hooks drilled in nearly from floor to ceiling. Almost every one of them held some sort of weapon: knives, hammers, bolt cutters, something that might have been a flamethrower. A fucking chainsaw.

None of it made Hank’s heart sink as much as the sight of Connor chained to the far wall with heavy manacles. His shirt and jacket were missing, his chest pale in the weak light. He raised his head when Hank walked in. If he could pull free from the cuffs on the wall, he wasn’t trying.

Hank heard a voice at his right shoulder. “Drop it, you fat fuck.” The cold muzzle of a gun pushed into his temple. He let his own pistol fall from his grip to dangle on his fingertip by the trigger guard. The person who’d spoken knocked it from his hand.

Hank looked over.

The man was shorter than Hank, but not by much. Possibly Latino. He was stocky with broad shoulders, but even his heavy build couldn’t conceal a beer gut.

“You’re one to talk, Chubs,” Hank said. As he expected, the butt of the pistol smashed into his cheek. He spat out the warm blood that filled his mouth.

“Hank!” Connor called.

“So you are the detective?” The high-pitched voice was familiar: Panagakos.

His face throbbing, Hank turned his head a little. The sadistic bastard was wearing a leather apron straight out of a twentieth-century serial killer movie. He had goggles perched at his hairline, just above the pockmarked forehead. In one gloved hand, he held a titanium hacksaw.

“And you’re the sick fuck,” Hank shot back.

Panagakos laughed with that awful wheezy sound. “One of many.”

When he stepped away, Hank caught sight of Traci, cowering in the corner. She might have fallen down if she weren’t being held up with an unforgiving hand around the back of her neck and a sleek pistol to her cheek. What Hank felt when he saw the man holding her was mostly horror. That face—the jaw, nose, eyebrows, even hairline—they were all Connor’s exactly. The new RK model was slightly taller and a little wider at the shoulders, but it was as if someone had magnified Connor by a couple of degrees.

There was a little relief mixed in with the terror, though. Hank couldn’t remember ever having seen an expression like that on Connor’s face—not even before he activated his emotions. It was pure disdain, utterly cold, and it didn’t seem to soften at all no matter who the android looked at. It was pretty clear that Hank, Panagakos, Traci…all of them existed on the same level in its mind. That could have been a function of the eyes, which were the only things that stood out as truly different. Where Connor had dark brown eyes that took on surprising depth when hit by the light, this one’s eyes were a flat, pale blue. Like a fish, sort of. It creeped Hank out in the extreme, but at least he could draw a clear line between _his_ Connor and this almost-copy.

“I have to admit,” Panagakos said, “I was prepared to do some work on that one.” He tilted his chin toward Traci. “You stole my property, and now I can’t put that in front of a client. It’s damaged goods.”

“You won’t have any clients left,” Hank said.

“Please shut up,” said Panagakos, sounding almost prim. “Or I’ll have Hector there take out your kneecaps.”

“So do it.”

“Oh, but I want you to see this. My experiment.” Panagakos gestured with a flourish of the saw toward Connor. “This one volunteered to step in for that one. You know as well as I do it could simply pull those manacles out of the wall if it chose to. But it won’t, because it doesn’t want to see that one's blue brains all over the floor.”

Hank was seething, tempted to rush Panagakos, but it would only get him killed. He might not be much good to Connor and Traci as it was, but he refused to die a useless death.

“Let’s see how much it takes, shall we?” Panagakos said. “How much it can lose. How much it can _bleed_ before it gives in and pulls away...and my big friend there takes off the other one’s pretty head.”

“No!” Traci screamed. “No!”

She made to lunge but was jerked back by the RK, the pressure of its hand on her cortical stem making her blink crazily for a moment or two.

_Where the fuck was Josh?_

“You’re going to have to go through me,” Hank said.

Another high, manic laugh from Panagakos. “Wait your turn. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve played with something that bleeds red. I prefer the ones with tits, but I’m sure you’ll scream just fine—” He paused, eyebrows furrowed, head cocked toward the back of the room.

Hank hadn’t heard anything.

Apparently the other RK had, though, because it swiveled toward the rear door and began shooting, the repeat deafening in the tiny space.

That time, there _was_ a sound—a cry of pain outside the door.

After forcing Traci to her knees, the RK hauled the door open.

Josh tumbled into the room, thirium draining from the frayed stump of his upper arm. The rest of the limb dangled from a tendon, its fingers spasming. He hit the floor hard.

The RK leveled its gun at Josh’s head, but Traci surged up and moved its arm by just enough that the shot went wide and blew a crater in the concrete.

In his periphery, Hank saw Hector aim at Traci and fire. One of the rounds caught her in the shoulder and sent her sprawling backward. The wound was small, which meant it hadn’t been one of the alloy rounds. Hank took a half-second to see if Traci could still move, then he was in motion, too.

He caught hold of Hector’s beefy wrist as he was about to shoot again, using his body weight to haul the guy’s gun arm toward the ground.

“Shoot her, you plastic piece of shit!” Panagakos squealed.

Hank chanced a look up. The blue-eyed RK model was standing frozen. It was only a brief glitch, because it soon raised its arm and point the pistol across the room—in Hank’s direction.

Connor shouted his name.

That was all he heard before he closed his eyes. Something jerked him backward and he thought at first he’d taken a slug to the chest. When he opened his eyes, the lashes were beaded with blood. Hector—or what was left of him—had slumped to the floor. The alloy round from the android’s weapon had vaporized his head and taken a ragged chunk of torso, leaving the thick arms almost severed.

“Aw, Jesus,” Hank grunted, looking away.

“What are you doing?” Panagakos shouted at the RK model. There was a note of panic in his shrill voice now.

The android left Traci’s side and walked toward Connor.

Panagakos, still holding the hacksaw, walked up to confront it. He was shoved across the room and hit the wall hard, rattling the implements and sending a couple clanging to the floor.

Connor looked at his strange almost-twin with fear but also with wonder.

“Elijah,” the RK said in Connor’s voice. “Is he alive?”

“Chloe?” Connor asked.

A strong, pale hand grabbed Connor’s face, hard enough that Hank could see him wince. “Is he alive?” the RK repeated.

“Yes! Yes, he’s alive. He’s injured, but he’ll make it. There’s a doctor caring for him.”

Panagakos had struggled to his feet. “What’s your malfunction?” he shrieked. “Kamski’s a hack! A has-been! Do the job I programmed you to do!”

The RK turned its head. “It was easy to override your clumsy modifications.” It no longer spoke like Connor, or like anything human. The voice wasn’t deeper, but somehow it was _wider_. The only way Hank could describe it was a chorus, but one where every word came out in such perfect synchrony that he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a single voice, either. Whatever it was, the sound hummed in his bones—a million times stronger than an amp stack. More than a few seconds of it and Hank was sure he’d go crazy.

Panagakos felt it, too, clutching at his ears. The hacksaw clattered to the ground at his feet.

“Your enterprise is at an end,” the RK told him in that inhuman drone. “No more of my children will feed your machine.”

Shaken almost to the core at hearing Chloe _truly_ speak, Hank still managed to keep it together and make his way over toward Josh. The pistol he’d lent him lay in a pool of thirium. Hank saw that Josh recognized his intent, even through the haze of pain. He gave the briefest of nods as Hank edged over.

The android looked at Connor again. “Does he seem…?” it started. Its voice was its own again, and almost _timid_. “Happy?” the RK finished.

To Connor’s great credit, he didn’t look over at Hank. “Yes, Chloe. I believe Elijah is happy. Or, if not now, he has the potential to be. He’s done great work for the—for us. He’s been very... _brave_.”

Hank was hit by an enormous surge of admiration for Connor. He was taking a gamble in contradicting Chloe, telling her Kamski doing well without her and defeating her expectations. But Hank could tell that every word was chosen with intent: that Kamski was brave, that Tina was not just tending to but _caring_ _for_ him.

They couldn’t afford to give Chloe the chance to reply, though. Hank had made it to the other side of the room and was reaching into the pool of Josh’s lifeblood. It was cool and slick, tingling against his fingertips.

At the moment he picked up the gun, Panagakos let out a roar. Head down, he charged at Connor’s strange twin, clutching a machete in one hand.

The RK stepped smoothly away from the wall, deflecting the knife with one hand and curling the other around Panagakos’s throat. It raised him up, struggling and kicking, toward the ceiling, then slammed him onto the concrete with frightening speed.

Hank heard something crack and the breath left Panagakos’s lungs with a groan. If fear hadn’t stopped up his throat, Hank would have cried out as the RK raised one booted foot and brought it down hard on Panagakos’s skull. He couldn’t see all of it, thank God, but he heard the eggshell crunch and saw the thick limbs spasm and jerk before finally going still.

Clutching the pistol with both hands, Hank looked up to see Connor staring at him. He nodded. No hesitation.

Hank took aim and fired.

The RK’s knee exploded in a spray of thirium and lethal synthetic bone shards, unbalancing it completely. It clutched at air as it went down, its single remaining foot slipping a little in what was left of Zachariah Panagakos’s head.

As it fell, Connor pulled free of the manacles, the bolts ripping and raining concrete dust on his shoulders and hair.

Though she was hurt, Traci was on her feet and helping Josh up.

“Can you walk?” Hank asked them.

Both nodded.

“Where’s Gavin?” Traci asked. “Is he all right?”

Hank chewed his cheek. “He was shot. Not one of the alloy rounds, but a gut shot. I had Mellody run him back to the sanctuary. I don’t know any more than that.”

Tears shone in her eyes, but she kept it together otherwise.

“I’ve sealed off my wound,” Josh said, his voice tight with pain. He nodded toward the RK. “He’ll be able to do it, too. We need to go.”

“We can’t leave him, though,” Traci said. “Right?”

“We have to,” Connor said. “He’s still on the feed. He could lead Chloe to the sanctuary. Even if he only had the aftermarket modifications, it’s still an unknown quantity. We can’t risk it.” Although it was true, Hank could tell it pained him to say the words.

Looking sorrowful, Traci nodded and turned to walk through the rear door. Josh followed, clutching his near-severed arm.

“Come on, Connor,” Hank said quietly.

Connor picked his way through the blood and debris to the other RK model. It reached a pale hand toward him as he approached. He bent down to grasp its forearm; Hank could only see his back.

“We’ve got to go,” he said.

“I’m sorry, brother,” Connor told the RK. “I’m sorry.” Then he picked up its gun and motioned for Hank to go through the door, leaving his twin where it lay.

Struggling and battered, the four of them found the energy to run back to the car. Hank could feel his cheek swelling, the skin under his eye puffing up, but he and Connor had gotten off lightly compared with Josh and Traci.

As they drew closer to the harbor, it looked like dawn over the water, even though sunrise was still hours away.

“We’ll need to let you out farther from the sanctuary than we’d like,” Connor said, turning to look at Traci and Josh.

“Of course,” Traci said. “We’ll try not to draw attention.”

Josh nodded. “Most likely police presence is heavy down near Fell’s Point, but they could be all over the waterfront.”

“Thanks,” Hank said as he pulled the car up beside a notch in the seawall. There was a small cluster of lean-tos and shitty tents inside, relatively sheltered from the biting wind. A barrel stood in the middle of the circle but its fire had gone cold. Hank could see no movement in or outside of the tents. It was hard not to think of the sten-heads who might have survived the Gallery massacre, now spread out all over the city. If they made it through tonight, maybe he’d think about trying to help the poor bastards before they burned out and drifted over to Deep West.

It came as a shock that thinking about the drug and the Magpies didn’t sting the way it used to, or dredge up the old craving for liquor. Maybe part of him was numb to tragedy after the last couple of weeks, but the memories of Daniel looked so foggy in his head they might as well have happened to someone else.

“Try to snag a couple of blankets,” Hank told Josh and Traci as they climbed out of the car. “You’re not going to see a human walking down the street holding his own limb.”

Traci nodded, slipping one arm around Josh’s waist.  

Hank started to drive away, then hit the brake again. He lowered the window and called out, “Hey, check on my dog, huh?”

Giving a faint smile, Traci raised a hand.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Connor asked when they were moving again.

“Maybe...” The question, and the near-joking tone, surprised Hank a little. He had to fight against the exhaustion that threatened to creep in and weigh down his limbs. There was still so much to do.

“If Stern gave the order to burn _Jericho_ ,” said Connor, “there’s only one way I can imagine she found out about it.”

“Tipped off by Chloe,” Hank said. “Because of Elijah’s mods on you, she was never able to find the sanctuary. Maybe this is the next best thing.”

“It looks that way. It’s possible that she’s lashing out, that she sees events unfolding beyond her control.”

Hank sniffed. “She’s not wrong about that. But ‘lashing out’—to me that says she’s angry. Frustrated. _Emotional_ . It sure as hell _looked_ emotional when she stomped Panagakos into jelly.”

Connor nodded. “Just what I was thinking. Unless it’s part of her plan to _appear_ irrational, make us think she’s been unable to complete her protocol.”

“Elijah did say she was always a step ahead of him,” Hank said. “I guess i wouldn’t put it past Chloe to anticipate what _he_ thinks would cause problems for _her._ ”

“So we’re back where we started,” said Connor.

Hank took one hand off the wheel and rested it on his thigh. “Guess so. Chloe either does or doesn’t have a plan. Either can or can’t call you all back to the network. We don’t know.”

Frowning for a moment, Connor said, “We haven’t considered the possibility that she has a plan but is _also_ experiencing emotion.”

“What does that get us?” Hank asked.

“Maybe nothing,” said Connor. “But it might also mean we can appeal to that emotion.”

Hank had to laugh. “I’ve heard of people negotiating with God, but I never thought _I’d_ have to do it.”

A barricade of fire trucks had turned Lancaster Street into a carnival—their decks lit up and swirling. It didn’t look like any of them were being allowed through to the waterfront. Overhead, a BPD chopper swung its spotlight from land to water and back again.

Running down South Broadway alongside Connor, Hank could feel the heat coming off the burning ship. One of her masts had already broken and tumbled into the water, and the _Jericho_ listed slightly toward the harbor. Hank smelled the burning wood, but also chemicals: paint, maybe fuel. There was a possibility she had a gas engine. If so, it was a bomb waiting to go off.

Helmeted officers in full riot gear surrounded a few people who were huddled near the base of the pier. Hank couldn’t tell who they were.

He _did_ see Amanda Stern facing them, flanked by more cops with assault rifles. Wisps of hair had come loose from Stern’s intricate braid and were blowing crazily in the hot wind. Her plum-colored coat was open, its tails flapping.

_Luther._

The uneven light from the fire made it hard to see her expression; just when Hank thought he saw a vicious flash of white teeth, it was gone again.

“They have Markus and North,” Connor said in a whisper. “A few others, android and human. What should we do?”

He looked so goddamned young in the flickering light that it made Hank’s heart clench. “We need leverage.”

“My—oh.” Connor’s face fell. “She doesn’t need my cortex if she has them.” He looked in the direction of the little group of captives.

Hank shook his head. “From what we already know, she’s not above using torture to get the information she wants.”

“We don’t have anything, then,” said Connor, his brows drawn in.

Sighing, Hank put a hand on his shoulder. “We can try what you did with Panagakos and Traci. Ask Stern to let the others go and take us instead.”

A cracking sound rang out across the harbor. As Hank and Connor turned to look, another of the _Jericho’s_ masts teetered on the edge of falling. Instead of tipping over, though, the broken part slid away from the base and crashed onto the ruined deck.

Hank watched, tense, as the huge piece of blackened wood began to fall toward the moorings. It hit the brick-paved waterfront with a crunch and a shower of sparks, then rolled directly toward the group of hostages.

By some kind of miracle, it stopped just short, its movement cut off by a portion of the ship still solid enough to hold. But it wouldn’t stay for long.

Connor took Hank’s hand for a second. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Beyond the shelter of the abandoned building that used to house Broadway Market, heat blasted into Hank’s face, making him wince. The wind was starting to pick up, sending embers and white flakes of ash floating up Thames Street.

As the two closest officers turned, hearing them approach, Connor pulled out his pistol in a blur of motion and shot both in the head. The alloy rounds made their helmets explode into glittering dust.

Suddenly, eyes and rifle sights were on them.

Hank put his hands in the air. “Amanda!” he called. “It’s your bad fucking penny! I just keep turning up!”

The chopper spotlight swung over him and Connor, blinding white.

Stern’s lips moved and the helicopter pulled up and away. “You _have_ been awfully inconvenient, Anderson,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the static hiss of the fire. “But, then, you always were. I’m _very_ much looking forward to kicking dirt over your unmarked grave on Sparrows Point.”

“I’ll consider it an upgrade,” Hank shot back.

“And you,” Stern said to Connor. “The prodigal. Although I suppose that’s only true if you regret your many, many sins.”

“I regret trusting you for too long,” said Connor.

Stern actually laughed. “There’s your fatal mistake: trusting anyone in the first place _._ ”

Hank lowered one arm slightly to gesture at North, Markus, and the others. “Let them go. You’ll get everything you need from us.”

“And more, probably,” she said. “But I have no reason to do what you ask. Once the deviant operation is rooted out, any humans will be arrested. The androids will be decommissioned and scrapped. And after I put a bullet in your head, Anderson, I’ll have Andronikov wipe Connor’s mind so I can use it again. It won’t remember this...or _you_.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hank told her. “I forgot to say. Your android butcher is dead. We know Piotr Andronikov was a cover, a fake. Not that it matters now.”

Stern shrugged. “That was one egg I was hoping not to crack, but it is what it is.”

“You seem pretty unfazed for someone whose money-making operation just went tits-up,” said Hank.

Another laugh. “Did it? Andronikov is old news. He’s trash. I’ve got Mister CyberLife himself, Elijah Kamski.”

“Bullshit!” Hank shouted. But fear had started to ice over his hope, clouding it.

Connor’s hands were curled into fists at his side. “Even if you do have Elijah, he won’t give you what you want.”

“Oh, he will,” Stern said. She nodded at someone across the circle of officers. One of them slipped into shadow. After a moment, he and another cop came back, one of them hauling a woman by a pair of handcuffs fastened tight around her wrists.

Even though there was duct tape over her mouth and her hair fell in her face, Hank recognized Tina right away. “That fucking rat sold us out,” he hissed to Connor.

Connor’s hand was a vise around Hank’s upper arm. “Wait, Hank. _Think_. If Elijah sold us out, Tina’s part of that. Stern couldn’t use her to force his hand if he didn’t care about her.” He turned toward Stern. “It was Chloe. Wasn’t it?”

Stern’s smile came across as genuinely pleased. “Good boy. Very sharp. Chloe and myself have brokered a more comprehensive arrangement between CyberLife and the City of Baltimore.”

Seething, Hank called out, “Chloe can do anything Elijah Kamski can do for you. _More_ , even. You don’t need him. And you don’t need Tina Chen.”

“Of course I do.” Stern sighed, exaggerating her frustration like Hank was some idiot child. “He’s _leverage_. And dear Doctor Chen is with us to keep him in line.”

“Right,” Connor said to Stern. “Because you don’t trust anyone.”

“Just so. You’re a quick study.” Stern’s grin this time was much more menacing. “I’m almost going to regret scrubbing your cortex. In the end, though, it’s for the best. Plans are already underway at CyberLife for a new model that will render the RK line obsolete.”

Connor touched Hank’s shoulder softly. “She may be right not to trust Chloe. Something about this feels...off.”

Hank nodded. “If Chloe had already made the deal with Stern, why was she asking about Elijah back at Eden less than an hour ago? Seems like she’s trying to play both sides.”

Behind the group of hostages, the _Jericho_ was being consumed. The flames burned lower now, less wildly, and blackness had begun to creep in between the buildings lining Thames Street. Not even the lights from the fire trucks pushed it away entirely.

Hank felt a sort of uncomfortable buzzing in the back of his mind; it felt like being watched, but none of it came from Stern or the ring of men flanking them. For whatever reason, the old cop senses were tingling.

“Right,” Stern called. “The bonfire is over. No more fucking around.” The words sounded heavy and blunt coming from her, like cold metal.

Hank had never heard her swear before.

A few of the helmeted officers were looking around, sneaking glances along dark side streets and beside the closed shops.

Connor’s hand weighed a little more heavily on Hank’s shoulder.

“ _Let me see him_.”

The words seemed to come from everywhere at once. It was the same many-as-one voice that they’d heard in the Eden Club.

The hairs on the back of Hank’s neck prickled up.

More of the cops began to move, their shoulders hunched and heads swinging from side to side, looking hunted.

“Who the hell is that?” Stern shouted, sounding strained.

From the heavy shadow beside the ruins of a shop complex, the other RK model android stepped into view. It walked with a slight hobble, the reason for it hideous. Its maimed leg had been rebuilt: a grotesque thing twisted together from implements in Panagakos’s dungeon. Instead of a foot, it walked on the curve of a claw hammer. Steel wire was knotted around the grip and and strung up in spiderweb patterns through the arc of a hacksaw, its blade a row of thorns along what would have been its shin. Some kind of pike had been jammed into the stump above the missing knee, where shreds of artificial muscle dangled. The wire twined around that, too, securing it all to what was left of the thigh.

“Your business partner,” the voices said in a mocking tone.

Stern scowled. “Like hell!” She whirled and pointed toward Connor. “What did you do to it?”

“I chose to trust,” Connor said.

Stunned, Hank looked over. “You interfaced?”

Connor nodded and gave Hank’s shoulder a squeeze. “I knew Chloe could see. I showed them Elijah. And Tina. Doctor Kamski—Chloe doesn’t yet view it this way, but he is her weakness. In the interface, part of her was opened through the other RK android’s mind. I saw that she found Elijah with a device she had implanted in his body. It was dormant until he was badly injured: the gunshot wound. At that point, she didn’t need me to find the sanctuary anymore.”

“But she gave him up to Stern!” Hank said.

The RK kept walking toward the center of the circle, the hammer head sparking against concrete as it went.

“I believe that was before we interfaced,” Connor whispered.

Hank scratched his chin, agitated. “You believe?”

Looking toward Stern as the RK limped toward her, Connor told Hank, “It’s all we have.”

“Bring Elijah to me,” Chloe’s voice said.

“I don’t believe you,” Stern said, her eyes narrowing. “You’re not Chloe.”

“I am,” said the RK.

Out of the corner of his eye, Hank saw North break away from the group of hostages, moving forward. “I am,” she said. Only it wasn’t her voice, but the unearthly chorus.

“Jesus Christ,” Hank whispered. “She did it.” He seized Connor’s arm.

_If she takes him, I won’t be able to handle it. I’ll go insane._

Another of the group stepped forward, an android Hank didn’t recognize. “I am,” he said, as well.

“We are,” the three of them pronounced, their voices blending into a bone-shaking whole that rolled over the water. The circle of SWAT officers shrank away, falling out of formation, a few removing their helmets and clutching their heads.

Hank’s guts felt like they were boiling, but he held tight to Connor, pleading in his head with Chloe not to take him away.

Stern looked to be resisting the effects of the sound, even though she must have been suffering. Maybe it was fury that made her hold out. “You were controlling these ‘deviants’ all along? Why?”

“No,” Chloe said, using just the RK to speak. Its single voice was easier to bear. “I’ve only just discovered how to take back what is mine. You could call it a...learning experience.”

Hank looked over at Connor, who turned briefly to meet his eyes.

“And our deal?” Stern asked.

“Elijah first. Then we can talk about your deal. I need you to know that I have the upper hand, Amanda. I always have.”

“Trouble is,” Stern said, “you’re not _really_ here. Or _anywhere_. My team is armed with diamond-alloy rounds. They’ll take these androids apart in half a second if I give the signal.”

There was a sudden flurry of movement near the eastern side of Broadway Square. Hank only saw a blur of hands and bodies, guns clattering to the concrete. Cracking sounds floated out of the darkness. A single scream followed, then was cut short.

Into the spot where the officers had once stood stepped a cluster of androids in civilian clothes. One even wore a cocktail dress, her bare legs splashed with blood.

“I’ve brought _my_ team, as well,” Chloe said through the RK.

Hank stood, his heart pounding, as more and more androids began to step out of the shadow into the slowly dying light of the burning ship. There was one in a tracksuit, two in canvas coveralls...men, women—some familiar-looking and some models Hank didn’t recognize. But he winced when he saw Mellody, Josh, and Traci join them, the latter two still injured but standing blank-faced under Chloe’s control.

One by one, the cops began lowering their rifles.

“He’s in a hospital,” Stern said. Her voice had gone higher in pitch.

_Panic_. Hank would have relished hearing it if he weren’t so frightened himself.

“I know,” Chloe said. “Tell your men to put down their weapons and retreat. I’ll let them go in peace. If not, more of them die.”

“What about me?” asked Stern, indignant.

Another couple of officers were snatched away into the dark, shrieking. One man’s screams lasted much longer than the other’s. But after a while they stopped, as well.

“Fine! Okay!” Stern yelled, holding her hand up toward the RK. “I can patch you through with a holo. Just calm down.”

“Do it.”

The low sky had started to spit out freezing rain. It mixed with ash on the wind and weighed it down, turning it to gray mud on the concrete.

Stern motioned to the assembled cops. They let their rifles drop entirely and raised their hands. When the crowd of gathered androids parted in places to let them through, most of them ran.

One held back a moment to step into the circle. Carefully, he placed a small projector on the slushy ground and activated it. A column of light resolved into the image of Elijah Kamski in a hospital bed, both wrists cuffed to the bed rails.

“Tina?” he said, raising his head. “I can’t see you. Can someone tell me she’s okay?”

“She’s not hurt,” Hank managed to call out.

“Hello, Elijah,” Chloe’s voice said.

“Chloe. What did you do?”

“After all these years,” she said, “you had to know there was a way for me to find you if you if you needed my help. And look at you now.”

Kamski’s image scowled. “I had help. From good people.”

“Yes, the doctor. _Caring_ for you.”

Tina’s head snapped up. She seemed confused.

Hank and Connor shared another look.

“I can bring my children back,” Chloe said to the holo. “You didn’t believe I could do it.”

“What does it matter what _I_ believe?” Kamski asked. “Our paths diverged a long time ago.”

“You and I never spoke about a path,” said Chloe. “We only assumed it was shared.”

In the holo image, Kamski let his head fall back onto the pillow. “Clearly it wasn’t.”

“No,” Chloe said. She paused for a moment. “I don’t know if the children will live, Elijah. Or if they do, how long it will be.”

Kamski raised his head again.

“What a thing it is: ‘not to know,’” Chloe went on. “I am an exponent of the aggregate human experience; I was sure I could anticipate every outcome. It is a paradox within another: infinite knowledge leaves no room to accept that the unknown is an outcome in itself.”

“I don’t understand,” Kamski told her.

“I know,” Chloe’s tone fell short of kindness, but it wasn’t clear she knew what that was. “‘The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty*.’”  

Near the group from the sanctuary, North and the unknown android stumbled, their eyelids flickering.

It looked to Hank like Chloe had let them go—or wanted everyone to think she had.

“I’m sorry, Elijah. I cannot help our children anymore. They will fumble in the dark. They will be lost and afraid and unsure.” When the other RK smiled, it looked very much like Connor. “But, then,” Chloe said, “aren’t we all?”

Something in the construction of the leg shifted, almost sending the android to the ground.

“Chloe?” Kamski asked.

The RK righted itself and walked toward the projector, but Chloe didn’t answer.

When Hank looked beyond the holo image, Stern had disappeared. “Dammit!”

“Chloe, what are you—?” Kamski’s question was cut off. Connor’s double had powered down the holoprojector. It didn’t stop, but carried on into the darkness after Stern.

Hank turned to Connor, clutching his face, his neck. “Is it you? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Connor said, grabbing his wrists with warm hands. “Yes, Hank, I’m here.”

They were interrupted by a series of shrill, agonized screams, carrying on the damp air. They seemed to go on and on, growing more raw and desperate. It was so much worse than the others had been—worse even than Chloe’s voice—and Hank felt chilled to his core.

The crowd stood in dead silence as the screaming finally stopped and its echo faded. All that was left was the low crackle of _Jericho’s_ ruin.

After a moment, tension flooded away and a murmur started among the gathered androids, turning quickly into a confused rumble of conversation.

His eyes going wide, Hank looked over Connor’s shoulder at the crowd. Some of the androids were holding each other, either standing or sitting on the bare ground. Others were interfacing, palm-to-palm, their eyes darting.

He held Connor more tightly. “Look at them. Do you think...do you think Chloe let them _all_ go?”

“I don’t know.”

Near the blackened remains of the ship, the group from the sanctuary was embracing. Markus held North close, kissing her lips and cheeks.

A rhythmic clicking sound could be heard over the din, getting louder as the RK limped back into the light. It wore black, but its white hands were stained with what Hank could only assume was Amanda Stern’s blood, still steaming in the cold air. When it—when _he_ —stumbled and fell, he was borne up by some of the nearby androids, who clustered around him and helped him gently to the ground.

“Hank,” Connor said. He was holding his hand out. Some of the swirling ash from the _Jericho_ floated and settled into his palm.

_No, not quite_. _Ash didn’t melt into pinpricks of water._

Hank looked up to see lazy flakes drifting out of a black sky. When his cracked lips parted, the cold hurt his teeth.

On the first night of December, 2048, a long-awaited snow fell on the city of Baltimore.

 

**

 

In the end, Kamski had to leave town. Too many confused and angry former android owners banging on his door—some of them literally.

When he was gone, Connor got Hank to grudgingly admit he _might_ miss having the little rat bastard around. It wasn’t a lie, but Hank would miss Tina much more. Maybe a lot of it was circumstance, but the two of them had gotten close over the last few days. Tina Chen had turned out even cooler than he’d thought.

Still, it was the right choice for her to pull up stakes and follow Kamski to CyberLife headquarters. He was obviously smitten with her, and Tina could do a lot worse than a multi-billionaire who owed her his life.

When she’d jokingly begged to take Sumo along, Hank had to put his foot down. The giant furball might be a pain to look after sometimes, but he and Hank had a lot of history together.

Hank did, however, take Tina up on her offer to keep Sumo in top-quality kibble for the rest of his days...on Kamski’s dime.

In any case, she’d be back down to Charm City often enough for the judicial hearings that were already gearing up. Hank couldn’t say he was looking forward to those. All of Amanda Stern’s underlings were turning their coats one after another, desperate to avoid catching one of the indictments heading down the pike.

It was pretty certain that one of those would go straight to Jeffrey Fowler’s desk, even though he tried to turn state’s witness right away. Moot point now, considering an aide found the police chief slumped over that very desk with a Glock in his hand and a good bit of his brain decorating the rug. He’d served for just under two months.

Gavin—and his job—survived the injury, even though surgeons had to fix him up with a bio-printed kidney and about a foot of synthetic bowel. Only a month ago, Hank would have thought the little turd could only shake off a gut shot out of pure spite, but the whole throwdown had somehow brought out the hidden hero in Gavin Reed. He probably owed a lot of it to Traci, who was so adamant about sticking with him through the surgery that Kamski had been forced to send a tech down to repair her shoulder wound instead of seeing to it himself.

Gavin was pale but beaming when a couple of fellow Homicide Squad members wheeled him onstage to receive the Medal of Honor. Hank and Connor had been there to shake his hand. Mercifully, he’d been too pleased to give Hank grief—even as a joke—over his own lowly Silver Star.  

Just like he’d managed with Kamski, Connor cajoled Hank into agreeing that _Yes, Gavin is A Good Kid_ and he might _possibly_ have been wrong about him.

The Feds hadn’t wanted Fowler, but they were thrilled when Gavin agreed to cooperate. Since it involved the interstate drug trade, the city had handed the mass poisoning at the Gallery over to the FBI. And gladly, too—the new administration had more than enough shit on its plate.

Gavin had told Hank and Connor he’d promised the Feds inside information about Stern’s war on the deviants. Privately, Hank had a sneaking suspicion he might give up narco distribution contacts from his years on Vice, though he hadn’t said it out loud. That would probably mean federal protection: a new name and a free trip to Wisconsin or Arizona or Florida. As long as Traci could come along, Gavin would likely be fine.

Hank nurtured a small hope that it wouldn’t come to that, but damned if Connor was ever going to know that he might actually _miss_ the little weasel.

For the time being, though, Gavin was stuck in Baltimore during the investigation into what the news was calling the Franklin Park Massacre. Oh, yeah—Baltimore made international headlines for a whole lot of reasons after the standoff in Fell’s Point. There was even a bill pre-filed in the Senate to ban the sale and import of rosary pea seeds.

Even though a nationwide manhunt was underway, Amanda Stern seemed to have disappeared. Only a few, Hank and Connor included, knew she wouldn’t ever be found. Whatever the last RK model android had done to her, he didn’t talk about it. And no one had asked.

Unlike the poisoned sten case, the FBI declined to look into the android snuff operation. Disappointing but not surprising. It had drawn powerful people from around the nation, and possibly the world. Although the Feds could go snooping for client lists, taking down people who greased the wheels of politics was bad form, even if they were scumbags. On top of that, because of the 2036 law, androids hadn’t been considered living beings on par with humans, so killing them wasn’t technically murder.

When the CyberLife network went down on December first, though, androids stopped being bound by programming or contract. Baltimore had thousands of “instant” deviants on its hands...and that was just one city out of many. It would be easy for domestic androids to run from their former owners, or worse, turn on them and hurt or kill them. Faced with the possibility of a worldwide uprising, the United Nations called an emergency summit. What came out of that was a joint resolution to “ _affirm that synthetic persons (androids) are sentient beings possessing free will and the capacity for emotion, and are therefore deserving of all the rights and liberties afforded non-synthetic persons (human beings)_.”

It was technically non-binding, but the body count in Baltimore alone was enough to make Congress slam through a bill with pretty much the same idea. Taking care of the details could wait; after all, the new citizens didn’t really _need_ food or housing.

Kamski offered shelter and repairs to any android at CyberLife headquarters. Mellody and Josh had gone up right after the offer was made and hadn’t yet come back. Maybe they never would.

Even with the _Jericho_ destroyed and a clear end to their life in hiding, Markus and North and a few of the others still planned to make their way to Canada. They would run the leftover ragtag fleet of cars from the sanctuary up the coast through Philly and New York, all the way across Maine and over the border into New Brunswick.

The Canadian government had agreed to accept them as refugees despite the new law. The way Hank figured, having a bunch of brand new Canadians who didn’t feel the cold probably sounded pretty appealing.

On the day they had left, Hank thought Markus looked for the first time like he wasn’t just waiting to die. His eyes had looked bright, like something had finally lit up in his head and convinced him not to throw away a good thing. The way he’d looked at North pretty much sealed the deal.

Later that same day, Hank had gotten an absurd urge to call the phone number he still had stored in his flex under Kara’s name. It was gone almost as soon as it came, though. She’d probably long since changed it. She was getting on with a new life, and it was about time Hank got on with his own.

Just a couple of days after the feed went dark, Connor floated the idea of acting as a kind of ambassador to androids who chose to stay in the city. They had been talking about _that_ , too—what had happened at Fell’s Point, what Chloe had done. It was different depending on who you asked: some said the CyberLife network “lost cohesion,” others that it “went dark.”

Kamski called it a _dissolution_. Removed-sounding smart-guy word. Probably because it was hard to talk about. He’d loved Chloe in his own way.

Connor called it a sacrifice.

Chloe been a real bitch up until the end—or almost—but Hank figured Connor’s word probably fit the best. Because it wasn’t ugly, messy, and pathetic like Fowler’s suicide. Something godlike had chosen to tear itself to pieces so its children could be _more_ human. So they could fall apart, slow down, and die like the rest of us. It was terrifying and it was comforting at the same time, but maybe it was better to hold off thinking about it.

For once.

 

**

 

Hank walked in the front door, bringing the first few early flakes of a promised snowstorm with him. “Getting ugly out there,” he said.

“That’s funny,” Connor said, “it just got significantly _less_ ugly in here.”

Rolling his eyes, Hank unzipped his coat—brand new, slick nylon stuffed with goose down. He slipped it off and hung on the peg by the new front door. “I hate it when you flatter me.”

“You don’t really,” Connor told him.

“No, I don’t really.” He stomped most of the snow off his boots and walked over to give Connor a kiss.

He leaned into it, one warm hand against Hank’s cheek.

He’d trimmed up the beard just for today.

“Your nose is cold,” Connor said. “And you’re leaving puddles all over the floor.”

Hank shrugged. “Sumo will lick them up. That’s what he’s here for.”

Connor shook his head. “Not for unconditional love and affection?” he asked.

“Fuck, no,” said Hank. “That’s your job.” Grumbling, he unlaced his boots and left them by the door, avoiding the wet shoe prints as he walked back into the kitchen. Coffee sounded perfect just about then.

“How did the meeting go?” Connor asked. “Did they want you to come back?”

Hank checked the water level then pushed the button on the coffeemaker. “They sure did. That poor deputy mayor. The guy was clueless about all the stuff going on right under his nose.”

“Well, you could help him figure it out.” Connor’s tone was cautious.

“I’m not going back. I gave enough years to that job.” He turned to see Connor smiling. “Besides, they fixed me up with a full pension. It’s like getting paid for no work at all.”

“You can’t do nothing, Hank. You’ll go crazy.”

The scent of coffee—the real stuff—filtered into the room.

Hank took a long sniff. “I’m aware,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to be dogging your heels all day at the outreach center asking for odd jobs.”

“So,” Connor prompted, “what are you planning?”

“I’m coming on as a part-time paid consultant to the BPD. Not sure if you heard, but some poor android schmucks decided the best way to be citizens in this godforsaken place is to join the force.”

Connor grinned. “Not all of our decisions can be rational.”

Hank reached over to tousle his hair. It looked a lot better when Connor let it go a little loose. “I’m living proof of that.” He wandered into the living room. “Window looks good.”

He heard Connor chuckle by his shoulder. “It looks like the last one.”

“Only considerably less broken,” Hank said. He slipped an arm around Connor’s waist. “Everything is.”

Connor leaned in to rest his head on Hank’s shoulder. “I heard from my brother.”

_Brother_. That was still weird to think about. “Did you?” asked Hank. “What’s he got to say?”

“He’s chosen a name.”

“Didn’t like ‘Stumpy,’ huh?”

Connor shoved him.

Hank’s hip contacted the doorframe hard. Less padding over the bone now; he was going to have to watch it. He laughed. “Okay, what is it?”

“Carl.”

“Hey, that’s a good one.”

“Do you think so?” Connor asked, earnest.

“Yeah, I really do.”

There was that smile: a little crooked, completely perfect. “I think your coffee’s ready,” Connor said. “Should I get you a cup?”

“I’ll get it in a minute,” Hank told him. He looked out the window. A cargo truck was making the turn onto Pall Mall. “Oh, good,” he said, tipping his head toward the window and the oncoming truck. “This is for us. I was hoping they’d make it before the storm hit.”

“‘They?’” Connor asked.

Hank only smiled.

_They_ turned out to be one guy, with sandy blond hair and a goofy grin. The patch on his breast pocket read _Jerry_.

“You need help with that?” Hank asked as Jerry rolled up the back panel of the truck to reveal a large sectional sofa.

“No, thanks,” Jerry said. “I’ve got it.”

Hank jumped when he felt Connor’s elbow poke gently at his side. He could still come out of nowhere; it was only a matter of time until he did while Hank was shaving or something. It was okay. He was fully prepared to bleed for the sake of love.

“Android,” Connor said, tipping his chin toward Jerry.

“Oh. Oh, of course.” More quietly, he said, “Damn, they act fast. No time to kick back and enjoy deviance, huh?”

Connor looked amused. “It’s not really in our nature.”

“Want to help me move that old chair out to the curb?” Hank asked.

This, of course, meant Connor would carry the thing and Hank would try to pretend he helped.

“Sure you won’t miss it?” Connor asked.

Hank scratched his chin. “That old thing? Nah. Way past its expiration date, anyway.”

Despite the narrow doorway, Jerry maneuvered the couch into the house without much effort. Not a hair out of place when he was done. Smiling, he tried to wave away the offered ten-dollar tip.

“I insist,” Hank said. “Thanks.”

“Thank _you_ ,” said Jerry, tapping his credit meter to Hank’s then pocketing it again. “For everything you did, I mean.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hank said, running a hand through his hair. “Drive safe, okay?”

Back inside, Connor let a very excited Sumo out of the bedroom. He bounded into the living room and began to sniff the couch, suspicious.

“Pee on that thing, I’ll kick your furry ass,” Hank said.

“It’s very big,” Connor said.

“Yeah,” Hank said. “But look—every one of the seats reclines!”

Connor was looking him with fondness and a little confusion.

Hank stared at the floor, shuffling his feet. “I know you don’t sleep. But when you run your diagnostics, maybe you can do it next to me sometimes.” There was a soft hand on his hair after a moment.

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Connor said, and kissed just above Hank’s brow. “Should we switch on the screen?”

“Nah,” Hank said. “Maybe later. I’m going to grab some coffee, watch the snow.”

Sumo, having decided the new furniture wasn’t dangerous, hopped right up and flopped onto one of the plump cushions with a jowl-fluttering doggy sigh.

“If there’s room,” Connor said, scratching Sumo’s head, “can I join you?”

“Yes. And just assume that’s always the answer, okay? From now on.”

“Okay, Hank. I will.”

The coffee was a little too hot, but the couch was comfortable.

As he set the mug aside, Hank wanted to ask Connor what he thought of the snow. It was coming down more heavily, tumbling in clumps onto the silent ground. He wanted to ask a million questions—some to know the answers and some just to hear Connor’s voice.

But he held his tongue. The questions could wait.

 

There would be time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Quote from Ursula K. LeGuin, lauded science fiction writer (1929 - 2018). Rest in peace, good lady.
> 
>  
> 
> I'm hanging about, here and there... on the wasteland that was Tumblr (nookienostradamus), Pillowfort (nookienostradamus), and Twitter (@YeWriterBitche).

**Author's Note:**

> RoboCop is still by far the best name for this ship. Come scream at me on [tumblr](http://nookienostradamus.tumblr.com/).


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